Data centers are fleeing to orbit, and laws can't follow
Surveillance control · 10.09.2026

While countries argue over who has the right to read your messages, tech giants have solved the problem radically: they simply moved the servers where no jurisdiction exists at all. SpaceX aims to launch its first generation of orbital data centers in Q4 2027, with ambitions of 100 gigawatts of capacity by 2030. It sounds nice — "progress," "AI," "space." In reality — it's an escape from the law at an altitude of 500 kilometers.

The logic is simple. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits claiming orbit as territory — meaning the requirement to "store citizens' data within the country" is physically impossible to fulfill there. Jurisdiction over a satellite belongs exclusively to its country of registration. What you get is a flag of convenience — not for a cargo ship, but for a server holding your medical records: data from a company in the Middle East flies up to a satellite registered somewhere else entirely, and local data protection laws simply stop applying.

It's the Arab states that have ended up in the most vulnerable position. For years they built digital infrastructure at home and introduced strict requirements to store residents' data within the country — and suddenly it turns out the server processing their citizens' data is hanging five hundred kilometers overhead, beyond the reach of their courts. And so far there's no clear response to this situation in sight: no unified stance, no ready plan of action — essentially, confusion in the face of something that's changing the very nature of digital sovereignty faster than laws can be written.

At the same time, the road to space isn't for everyone. A gigawatt of orbital capacity costs around $170 billion, versus $14.1 billion for a ground-based equivalent. A market that only one, maybe two companies can afford to enter isn't really a market — it's a politely dressed-up monopoly.

And although Arab states formally do have leverage — not over the server, but over the signal: frequencies, satellite landing rights, ground gateways — no one seems to quite know how to use it yet. A satellite flies at 27,000 kilometers per hour, but the antenna on the ground isn't going anywhere, and licensing it is still up to the state. The only question is whether these states will figure out what they actually want to achieve before the window for regulation closes on its own.

Source: https://www.habtoorresearch.com/programmes/orbital-data-centres