Chennai-based space-tech startup Agnikul Cosmos will invest Rs 510 crore to set up a facility in Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati district that will manufacture orbital data centre units, joining a global race to move computing infrastructure into space.
The Andhra Pradesh agreement
The company signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government on Friday at the CII Partnership Summit 2026, Business Standard reported. According to The Hindu BusinessLine, the facility will come up at Space City in Tirupati and will complement Agnikul’s existing facilities in Chennai. Agnikul is one of five space startups setting up operations in the state, alongside Astrobase in Anantapur and SpaceFields, EtherealX and Skyroot Aerospace in Tirupati.
Rockets that double as data centres
The plan builds on Agnikul’s patented technology that lets the extendable upper stage of its launch vehicle double as a satellite bus capable of hosting a data centre. The proposed facility will offer a platform for semiconductor companies to build graphics processing unit (GPU) stacks that can be integrated directly with the rocket’s upper stage.
Chief executive and cofounder Srinath Ravichandran told Business Standard it would be the first such facility in Asia and one of the first globally. Agnikul has signed Bengaluru-based NeevCloud as its first customer, under which it will launch an orbital AI data centre module built on NeevCloud’s AI SuperCloud platform. Space-based data centres promise access to solar power, natural cooling and the ability to run high-density AI workloads.
A crowded new frontier
The announcement comes about a month after Google’s Suncatcher prototype data centre flew aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and a day after SpaceX unveiled plans to invest more than $74 billion in two AI supercomputing campuses in Texas and Arizona. Within India, satellite imaging company Pixxel announced a partnership with Sarvam in May to build what they described as India’s first orbital data centre satellite, while Hyderabad-based TakeMe2Space plans to fly a networked orbital data centre mission in 2028.
Agnikul, which flew its Agnibaan SOrTeD mission from India’s first privately operated launchpad at Sriharikota in May 2024, expects its next launch in the first half of next year, showcasing a reusable launch vehicle and its upper-stage technologies.
The announcement caps an active week for Indian startups, during which Google invested Rs 10 crore in creator-economy platform Rigi and climate-forecasting startup mistEO raised Rs 18 crore in seed funding.
Sources: Business Standard, which interviewed Agnikul’s chief executive, and The Hindu BusinessLine. Circle of News has not independently reviewed the agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government.
