Jeff Bezos no longer just wants to race with Elon Musk for the individual customer; his ambitions extend to the critical infrastructure of the digital economy. Blue Origin ‘s announced TeraWave project is an attempt to capture the most lucrative and technically challenging segment of the space market: servicing data centres, governments and large-scale artificial intelligence systems. While Starlink has dominated the consumer market, Bezos is targeting ‘fibre in orbit’.
The new constellation is to consist of 5408 satellites deployed in low and medium Earth orbit. The key differentiator here, however, is not scale, but performance. Using optical (laser) communication between satellites, the network is expected to offer transfer speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth. These are parameters unattainable for standard satellite services, dedicated to a specific audience. Dave Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, emphasises that TeraWave has been designed from the ground up for corporate customers, not households. The company estimates that the network will serve a maximum of around 100,000 entities, a radical departure from Starlink’s model of competing for millions of subscribers.
The decision to build TeraWave fits perfectly with the ‘gold rush’ of the AI era. Training and operating large language models requires massive computing power and lightning-fast data transfer, which on Earth involves gigantic energy consumption. Moving some of this infrastructure into space or providing it with ultra-fast orbital connectivity is the game Bezos wants to deal the cards. It is also a strategic addition to another constellation linked to the billionaire, the Amazon Leo network (formerly Project Kuiper), which is still vying for the mass market.
However, the implementation of these ambitious plans is fraught with significant execution risk. Satellite deployment is scheduled to begin in the last quarter of 2027, which requires flawless operation of the New Glenn rocket. Blue Origin’s reusable launch system must achieve a launch rate similar to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to make the launch of thousands of craft economically viable. Geopolitical competition also remains in the background, with China dynamically developing its own rockets and constellations, making the battle for on-orbit dominance a race not only technologically but also politically.
