First Cloud Native Satellite in the Sky: Huawei Brand Verified in Space for First Time

On Friday, Huawei announced that the satellite carrying the computing load of “Sky Computing Constellation” was successfully launched on December 7. It is the first satellite with the Cloud Native edge computing capability. At present, the satellite is running stably in orbit. Also, it is the first time that Huawei Cloud Native has been verified in space.

According to Huawei, after the successful verification of Huawei Cloud’s “Cloud-Edge Synergy” scheme in space, it will later be deployed in six satellites in the same phase of “Sky Computing Constellation” to form a collaborative computing network in space. It is expected to better serve emergency communication, ecological monitoring, disaster prevention and mitigation, urban construction and so on in the future.

The “Sky Computing Constellation” program is co-sponsored by the Shenzhen Institute of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and Spacety (a commercial space company). The goal of the program is to serve China’s major strategic needs and to explore the frontier of international science and technology. It is committed to the construction of an open source platform for on-orbit test of aerospace computing integrating production, education, research and application through the intelligent, service-oriented and open designs of satellites, so as to provide technical support for promoting the development of 6G networks, satellite internet and other technologies in China.

Huawei Cloud said that as the first batch of cooperative co-construction units, it integrates edge computing with satellite computing platform. Thus, satellites can call the resources of edge and central cloud at the same time in space, and at the same time possess AI and multitasking capabilities.

The test data show that through the cooperative inference between satellite and ground station, the computing accuracy improved by more than 50% and the amount of data returned by satellite can be reduced by 90%. Satellites will now enter the Cloud Native era.

Meanwhile, this is the first time that Huawei Cloud “Cloud-Edge Synergy” scheme has been verified in space. This means that satellites can call the resources of edge and central cloud at the same time in space, and possess AI and multitasking capabilities, so that they can maximize efficiency and response speed.

SEE ALSO: Huawei AR Engine Installed 1.1 Billion Times, With Access to Over 2,000 Apps

With Cloud Native edge computing, researchers can discard low-quality image data with over 50% coverage by clouds and snow by on-orbit AI inference to reduce transmission pressure. After effective images are transmitted back, Huawei Cloud high-precision AI model is used for calculation at the central nodes with abundant computing resources, which further shortens the time of image preprocessing, water area extraction and monitoring report generation from the usual one day to one hour, and significantly improves the emergency response time.

In addition, satellite edge tasks can be updated as needed. Through on-orbit AI inference, images before and after rainstorms can be compared to find the risk of mountain collapse. It can help to find hidden dangers of geological disasters in advance, and give early warning.