There is a new partnership between Elon Musk founded SpaceX and Google. On Thursday, Google announced that it had won a contract that entails supplying computing and networking resources to SpaceX and will aid the space operations-based company to deliver internet services through its Starlink satellites.
As part of the deal, SpaceX will install ground stations at Google data centres that connect to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite. This is geared at providing fast internet to enterprises by the second half of this year.
With this new partnership with Google, Starlink aims at providing internet services that are both reliable and will reach areas that are hard to reach. The benefit of the partnership between Starlink and SpaceX surpasses just providing wider access to internet connections, technology firms in businesses related to cloud-based infrastructure and applications, AI and machine learning, analytics, etc., stand to gain from this partnership.
According to statements by the companies, the results of the partnership should become visible by the second half of the year. It is still quite strange for Google (and other cloud providers) to accept a deal such as this because it strongly relies on the internal networks that connect data centres which is the heart of Google Cloud operations.
According to Thomas Kurian; CEO of Google Cloud group, “they chose us because of the quality of our network and the distribution and reach of our network”
“This is one of a kind. I don’t believe something like this has been done before. The real potential of this technology became very obvious. The power of combining cloud with universal secure connectivity, it’s a very powerful combination”, Google’s Head of Networking; Bikash Koley said.
With 5G becoming increasingly popular, cloud providers are shifting their focus to the telecommunications industry. Amazon, for instance, said last month that it would use its AWS infrastructure to provide 5G services to consumers.
SpaceX’s collaboration with Google will provide fast internet for people and enterprises. Instead of cell towers that users’ devices usually connect to, this time devices will connect to Starlink’s satellite which is linked to Google’s data centres. This way, people can run applications faster using Google’s cloud services.
Starlink’s partnership with Google isn’t exactly the first of its kind as Microsoft is already working with the company to provide internet connectivity to modular Azure cloud data centres that customers can deploy anywhere.
About a week ago, SpaceX announced its plan to launch its satellite internet service in Nigeria. The company announced that it has started the process of procuring necessary licenses to be able to fully launch its internet service in the country.