Burst‑mode AI in orbit

Satellite AI will likely operate in short, high‑power bursts because orbital power generation and thermal limits constrain continuous TPU use. That forces different system designs (transient‑compute scheduling, optical inter‑satellite links, burst‑tolerant comms) and makes orbital AI a distinct engineering and policy category from terrestrial data centers. — If true, burst‑mode operation changes economics, security, and regulatory frameworks for space‑based compute and could shift where sensitive inference workloads run (private, commercial, or military).