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Thales Alenia Space said feasibility study confirmed deploying data centers into space could offer a more sustainable solution for hosting and processing data

A European initiative that studies the feasibility of building data centers in space has found that the project could be economically viable while reducing the carbon footprint of the infrastructure that is powering the artificial-intelligence boom.

Space company Thales Alenia Space, the coordinator of the European project, said Thursday that a feasibility study confirmed deploying data centers into space could offer a more sustainable solution for hosting and processing data. The project could also generate a return on investment of several billion euros between now and 2050, the company said.

Data centers provide the computing power that AI models need to run, but also consume hefty amounts of energy and water. The rise of ChatGPT and similar AI applications kicked off a race among technology companies to build more data centers, raising concerns about the potential environmental impact.

The study—dubbed Ascend, short for Advanced Space Cloud for European Net zero emission and Data sovereignty—was funded by the European Union and sought to compare the environmental impacts of space-based and Earth-based data centers, the company said. Moving forward, the company plans to consolidate and optimize its results.

Space data centers would be powered by solar energy outside the Earth’s atmosphere, aiming to contribute to the European Union’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, the project coordinator said.

“The results of the Ascend study confirm that deploying data centers in space could transform the European digital landscape, offering a more eco-friendly and sovereign solution for hosting and processing data,” Thales Alenia Chief Technical Officer Christophe Valorge said.

Data centers and data-transmission networks accounted for about 0.9% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, or 0.6% of total emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.

Thales Alenia, a joint venture between aerospace-and-defense companies Thales of France and Leonardo of Italy, collaborated with partners such as aerospace company Airbus, server and cloud-software company Hewlett Packard Enterprise and telecommunications group Orange in the study. It found that space data centers would require the development of a launcher 10 times less emissive over its entire lifecycle to significantly reduce carbon-dioxide emissions generated by the processing and storage of digital data.

Space data centers wouldn’t require water to cool them, the company said.

Runners say the sneaker giant has stepped back from the community, opening the door for Hoka, New Balance and others

Brendan Eng’s running group in Portland, Ore., has roughly quadrupled in size since 2021 to about 80 runners. And that doesn’t include the representatives from New Balance, Hoka or Asics who regularly show up at its events to let runners try new sneakers, give out free merchandise and pay for drinks after the workout.

One local giant has been conspicuously absent from the road-running scene: Nike NKE -0.73%decrease; red down pointing triangle.

“In the three years I’ve led this group there have been only two Nike road demos. I feel like I’ve seen the Hoka rep four times this year,” Eng said.

As the popularity of run clubs soared since Covid—among both runners and shoemakers—some members of the avid running community in the Portland area, near Nike’s Beaverton, Ore., headquarters, say the hometown brand has faded from the scene.

Nike, which has long monopolized the attention and wallets of avid runners, in recent years shifted its focus to other areas of its business including the release of limited-edition sneakers. Competitors swooped in, resulting in an increasingly fragmented market that has dented Nike’s finances and prompted a strategic reset at the sneaker company.

Nike on Thursday is expected to report that sales grew 1% for the full year—its worst results in more than two decades excluding the first year of the pandemic and the 2008-09 financial crisis. Executives acknowledge they lost ground in the critical running category and say they are doubling efforts to regain a stronger grasp of the market. They are betting that a new line of shoes will give it a boost during the Paris Olympics this summer.

“We underinvested in that, and that’s what we’re reinvesting in,” Nike Chief Executive John Donahoe said of the running category in an April interview.

Nike said in a statement that it has deep roots in the Oregon running community and that it helps runners perform better through its innovations. The company is doubling the size of a team of reps that meet with everyday runners and advise them on products. Nike said that it supports a range of run clubs in Portland and that it has partnerships with coaches and running ambassadors.

Run clubs, or crews, have been around for at least two decades, but they were largely exclusive to elite runners. The postpandemic running boom ushered in a new, more inclusive breed. These days, anyone can join a run on most clubs. Some designate people to start the route later to make sure no one is left behind.

Natalia Barwegen, who works in sales for an events company, started the FoPo Run Club in the Foster Powell neighborhood of Portland in early 2017. The 40-year-old ran by herself for a month before anyone else showed up. Now the club has about 60 regular runners who meet every Wednesday.

Barwegen started looking at who was tagged on Instagram posts from running stores and sent messages to those brand reps to get them to come to a FoPo run to do a demo, an event where brands let runners try on new shoes. Hoka was the first brand to show up about two years ago. and other footwear companies like Mizuno and Brooks soon followed. The first time she heard back from Nike was in late April, when a rep brought pairs of the Invincible 3 for runners to try on.

“Sometimes Nike reps focus on the cool hip groups downtown and the younger crew, and then forget about other clubs,” Barwegen said.

New Balance has field reps around the world who engage local running coaches and run club leaders, said the company’s vice president of running, Kevin Fitzpatrick. The goal is to make a connection with runners that they will remember next time they are looking for a new pair of shoes, Fitzpatrick said. “You don’t see the immediate return, but you do see it over time,” he said.

Zurich-based On takes a similar approach but also starts its own run clubs. Earlier this year the company opened a store in Portland, and it has unofficially taken over Wednesdays for run clubs by inviting others to its own, said Dan Schade, On’s general manager of the Americas.

Some run clubs say Nike has a strong presence. Amir Armstrong co-founded a run club out of the sneaker-themed Deadstock Coffee in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood. There are two running groups and a walking crew that meet every Tuesday, and during the summer the runs can draw over 100 people. When a brand comes, which happens almost every two months, it can be twice as many and it is like a block party, he said.

Nike shows up as much to the Deadstock Run Club as any other brand, Armstrong said. One of the sneaker giant’s reps has become part of the Deadstock community, he said.

“He runs with us. He’s led my crew sometimes when I have to go out of town for work,” Armstrong said.

Runners say the company doesn’t dominate the culture the way it once did largely because other companies have caught up by marketing themselves more aggressively on the ground. Run-club leaders say brands like Brooks, Hoka and Asics have tapped into members’ willingness to try something new—and switch if they like it.

“They’re really going with the brands that are coming more,” Eng said.

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A senior U.S. lithium industry executive has called for Western car and battery companies to pay a premium for lithium refined in the U.S., arguing that prices for the metal are too low to cover the cost of building and running processing plants there.

Global lithium prices—effectively set in China, which processes most of the world’s supply of the metal—have fallen more than 80% since the start of last year. Eric Norris, president of energy storage at Albemarle, the world’s largest lithium producer, said that at those prices, U.S. lithium producers can’t afford to build processing plants at home—a goal of U.S. policymakers, who want to create a national battery supply chain to compete with China’s.

Norris, speaking Tuesday at the Fastmarkets battery metals conference in Las Vegas, argued that auto and battery companies should pay a “U.S. price” for lithium, higher than the price set in China. “You can’t use a China price in a U.S. market,” he told me after his speech. “It’s a different product. It should have a different differentiated value.”

Norris also pushed for more U.S. subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act, which he said doesn’t do enough to incentivize lithium production at home. The IRA offers a 10% tax credit for production facilities, but Norris said, “That’s not sufficient,” without specifying what Albemarle is looking for,

Norris’ overture reflects the dire conditions for miners and refiners of lithium, nickel and cobalt. Lower metals prices have led to much cheaper batteries, as we have reported. But they have hurt the share prices of the mining companies: Albemarle’s stock price has plunged 55% over the past year; Lithium Americas is down 76% over that period and Pilbara Minerals 33%.

In January, Albemarle halted construction of a planned lithium refinery in South Carolina. It had planned the refinery to process lithium from Kings Mountain, N.C., where the company is reopening a decades-old mine. Albemarle also has lithium mines at Silver Peak, Nev., in Australia and Chile.

The share prices of Chinese lithium producers have also declined—Ganfeng Lithium Group and Tianqi Lithium are both down 43% year to date. But state support, in addition to lower labor and other costs, helps Chinese companies weather such downturns.

Some conference attendees were skeptical of Norris’ idea. Rodney Hooper, an investor with RK Equity, told me that automakers won’t pay more when they are scrambling to cut electric vehicle costs to attract ambivalent consumers and that consumers will resist higher prices if costs are passed on to them.

Speaking on a panel, Joe Lowry, president of Global Lithium, a consulting firm, also said that talk of a U.S. lithium premium is unrealistic: “If people are building projects based on expecting a…premium, maybe they should be selling insurance.” Daniel Jimenez, founding partner of iLiMarkets, a lithium consulting firm, said Chile and Australia—both of which, as signatories of free trade agreements with the U.S., are eligible for IRA credits—may refine most of the lithium the U.S. needs for the next five years or more.

Ford declined to comment. General Motors did not respond to an email.