Data centres are the backbone of modern cloud computing and artificial intelligence, but they usually require large buildings, huge amounts of electricity and fibre networks to move data around.
Satlyt, a space-tech startup with its African headquarters in Nairobi, is pursuing a different approach: putting more computing power to work in orbit.
The company develops software that allows satellites to process data and run artificial intelligence applications using computers already installed onboard the spacecraft. Its longer-term goal is to connect computing resources across multiple satellites and create what it calls virtual AI data centres in space.
Satlyt has now raised $8 million in seed funding to develop that vision. Houston-based early-stage venture capital firm non sibi ventures led the round, with participation from TLCOM, Antler, Slauson & Co., Launch Africa Ventures, Enza Capital, Askya Investment Partners, Demos, BAG Collective, Gaingels, Axian Investment and other investors.
The company plans to use the funding to expand its engineering and customer delivery teams and deploy its software on more spacecraft operated by other companies.
The pitch is particularly relevant to Africa, which currently accounts for less than 1% of global data centre capacity, with about 360 megawatts of active capacity. The GSMA estimates that African countries will need to more than double their hosting capacity by 2030 as demand for digital services and AI computing grows.
Building that capacity is expensive. Market estimates put the average cost of developing a data centre in Africa at around $10 million per megawatt, with costs reaching roughly $15 million per megawatt in markets such as Nigeria.
Satlyt’s argument is that some computing workloads do not necessarily need to be brought back to Earth. Instead, satellites already in orbit could process more of the data they collect before sending it down.
“Running applications on existing spacecraft gives operators a way to do more with the computing hardware they already have in orbit,” said Rama Afullo, Satlyt’s founder and CEO. “Our job is to make those applications practical to deploy and operate.”
Satellites already have computers onboard to control their systems and process the data they collect. Founded in 2024 by Kenyan-American entrepreneur Afullo, Satlyt develops software that allows some of that existing computing capacity to be used for additional workloads, including AI and data processing.
The software is designed to work across different satellite systems. It can be uploaded to an existing spacecraft, installed as part of a retrofit or loaded before launch.
That means satellite operators do not necessarily need to add new computing hardware. Satlyt provides the software layer that allows existing onboard computers to run additional applications.
In simple terms, the company wants satellites to work more like cloud servers. A software developer could run an application on a satellite operated by another company instead of building and launching its own spacecraft.
“We don’t want satellites to be isolated computers collecting data and sending everything back to Earth,” Afullo said. “We want spacecraft to run AI, process data onboard, make decisions locally, and eventually coordinate a computer across spacecraft.”
Satlyt says its software is already operating in orbit and that it has worked with NASA and Google. In one deployment, Google’s Gemma AI model ran on a satellite and analysed system logs to identify software errors without first sending the data back to Earth.
The company is also working with the University of Houston under NASA’s Small Business Technology Transfer programme. Through the project, supported by NASA’s Glenn Research Centre, Satlyt is developing delay-tolerant networking technology that would allow spacecraft to exchange information despite the communication delays and interruptions common in space.
The bigger ambition is to allow satellites operated by different companies to contribute computing power to a shared network.
“We see a vast opportunity for software to make spacecraft computing more useful to operators and application developers,” said Kent Lucas, managing partner at non sibi ventures.
Satlyt has several potential revenue streams. Satellite operators can pay to have its software installed and to improve the use of their existing computing capacity. The company also runs paid pilots with large aerospace and defence contractors, while space agencies fund specific technology development through research programmes.
Satlyt is not alone in exploring computing in space. Companies including US-based Starcloud and Axiom Space are also developing technologies around space-based computing and infrastructure.
For Satlyt, however, Africa remains an important part of the company’s longer-term strategy. It has signed memoranda of understanding with the Kenya Space Agency and Angola’s Gabinete de Gestão do Programa Espacial Nacional.
Africa’s space economy is estimated to be worth nearly $25 billion and is projected to reach about $39.5 billion by 2030.
Afullo believes African countries should have a role in building the infrastructure behind the space economy, rather than simply buying access to data and services developed elsewhere.
“If Africa does not have a significant foothold in the space industry, we will be at odds with the rest of the world, and we will always be looking for other folks to provide us our data,” he said.
For now, Satlyt is focused on a more immediate opportunity: making satellites more useful by giving them more computing capabilities.
“We are not trying to offset data centres right now. The goal is edge compute for satellite systems,” Afullo said.