Google Cloud and Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite connectivity deal

On Thursday, Google said that it signed a contract with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to utilize the space company’s improving satellite internet service, Starlink, with its cloud unit.

SpaceX will connect Starlink terminals at Google’s cloud data centres worldwide, striving to use the cloud for Starlink consumers and permit Google to use the satellite network’s fast internet for its enterprise cloud customers.

The Starlink-Google Cloud capacities, which involve secure data delivery to remote regions of the world, will be open to customers by the end of 2021, Google stated in a press release.

SpaceX will install the initial Starlink terminal at Google’s New Albany, Ohio, data centre. A spokesperson stated that combining different plans on the partnership will be accorded in the coming months.

The contract is a simple alliance between SpaceX and Google, which, in 2015, funded $900 million into the space company to include an array of technology, including Starlink satellite formation.

So far, SpaceX has begun 1,625 Starlink satellites, with about 1,550 currently in orbit. A Starlink beta presentation that started last year has at least 10,000 users across the US, Canada, and several European countries, with at most limited 500,000 deposits of $100 placed by possible service clients.

Combat is challenging between Musk’s Starlink network and the growing Kuiper Project from Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, aiming to drive more than 3,000 satellites is approximately the identical orbit as Starlink global broadband internet.

The Google-SpaceX contract rates added a competitive win for Google in its competition with Amazon’s behemoth cloud assistance unit, Amazon Web Services. Amazon officials have stated they intend to leverage internet connectivity from Kuiper to supercharge its AWS cloud services.

“Applications and services operating in the cloud can be transformative for companies, whether they’re running in a deeply networked or remote environment,” Urs Hölzle, senior vice president of infrastructure at Google Cloud, stated in the press release.

Hölzle told Google is “fascinated to partner with SpaceX to assure that organizations with shared footprints have seamless, secure, and fast path to the critical applications and services they need to retain their teams up and running.”

The Google contract includes transferring internet data “access to businesses, public sector companies, and several other groups operating around the world.”

SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell stated in the press release. “Connecting Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency broadband with Google’s infrastructure and skills presents global organizations with the reliable and secure connection that new organizations expect,” she replied.

Microsoft, which means added large cloud service called Azure, also clashes with Amazon’s cloud and partnered with SpaceX last year in a related partnership.

Shotwell said in settling Azure cloud data through the broadband highway of Starlink. The two firms will be “co-selling to our mutual customers, co-selling to new business and future customers” for data services, a promotional video at the time.