European space policy faces a quiet strategic drift: dependence on foreign orbital data centers. The European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) warned Aug. 5 that U.S. ventures and China’s state-orchestrated buildout are pulling ahead in space-based computing while Europe’s own efforts stay small and scattered.
China’s activity shows the gap is real. ADA Space’s Three-Body Constellation reached orbit in 2025 as the field’s first working example, and follow-on efforts keep coming. China Mobile, Comospace, Bailing Aerospace and Shanghai Xingshu are all in the mix, with Xingshu reportedly starting deployment of a 1,000-satellite network in July. Two Chinese launcher makers, iSpace and Nayuta Space, also see orbital computing as a market worth entering.
ESPI contrasts Beijing’s top-down approach with the largely commercial U.S. push, where startups like Starcloud and Cowboy Space have hit billion-dollar valuations. European projects, including French startup ALATYR’s plan for robotically assembled orbital data centers, remain at research and demonstration scale with no big deployment strategy behind them.
The institute’s warning is blunt: China treats space-based compute as the next frontier of its technology strategy, aiming to export the capability and shape global standards before rivals react. Europe, it argues, risks handing orbital computing to Washington and Beijing by default.
The report lands amid growing U.S. interest in orbital data centers for national security workloads and sharpens the debate over European strategic autonomy in space infrastructure.
