The cloud flies into space: Microsoft teams up with SpaceX

The technological giant wants to integrate its cloud computing system with the satellite internet of the Starlink constellation created by Elon Musk

An antenna to receive communications from space (Getty Images) Microsoft wants to bring its cloud into orbit and makes a strategic agreement with the space company Space X. The partnership, which also includes other companies in the aerospace sector, is part of the Azure Space initiative announced by the Redmond giant on 20 October and aimed at integrating its cloud computing system with satellite internet. In this collaboration, Microsoft will provide a mobile infrastructure, based on datacenters moved by truck, to communicate with the Starlink constellation, the satellite internet project initiated by Space X and which aims to send over 1,500 satellites into space by 2021. br>
In essence, Microsoft will allow to spread the Starlink web connection also thanks to its Azure Modular Datacenter and Azure Orbital structures, and aims to extend its cloud services globally. In particular, the application of these services will cover various sectors, the main ones being certainly the commercial and military sectors, where Microsoft has already been chosen by the Pentagon as the official provider of cloud services against the main rival of the Amazon sector.

With this move, therefore, Microsoft is also officially entering the space-related cloud services business, a sector that overall could be worth around $ 15 billion by the end of the decade, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Furthermore, together with Amazon, which with Amazon web services (Aws) dominates the sector with a market share of 33%, the Redmond company is in second place among the global service supply companies cloud, a market that is today worth more than 111 billion dollars.

For its part, Space X, a company founded by Elon Musk in 2020, in recent years has carved out a prominent position in the space economy , a sector that represents one of the fastest growing markets and which according to Morgan Stanley analysts is worth about 350 billion dollars. Moreover, for today, October 21st, Space X has planned the launch of another 60 new satellites that will add to the 540 already in orbit as part of the Starlink project.

Among the other partners identified in the development of the project Azure Space for its space cloud, Microsoft has also signed a collaboration with the Luxembourg company Ses, which manages other satellites already in orbit and more distant than those of Space X with the O3b brand.