Running Google’s Gemma on Satlyt’s orbital AI (w/ CEO Rama Afullo)
November 12, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readRunning Google’s Gemma on Satlyt’s orbital AI (w/ CEO Rama Afullo)
Rama Afullo left SpaceX after three months as a Starlink product manager because he was told the last people who proposed orbital compute were "no longer at the company." He started Satlit just over two years ago, and the company has already run Google's Gemma small language model on satellites in orbit, with a case study from Google DeepMind documenting the work. The core proposition: treat satellites not as dumb transponders but as nodes in a distributed compute network that can process data in space before sending it down.
The origin and the why
Afullo grew up in a technical family — his father is a Kenyan electrical engineering professor whose PhD focused on SATCOM and microwave technology, and his mother is a computer scientist. He bought the domain for "satlyt" about a decade ago, before working at Tesla as the company's third employee in Africa, then at Google as a professional cloud architect, then at SpaceX. At Google, he pitched internally for orbital compute and orbital data centers, but the company's priorities were terrestrial — competing with ChatGPT. SpaceX was similarly unreceptive.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:03) **Introduction and Guest Background** - Jason welcomes Rama Afulo, founder and CEO of Satlyt, building software to run AI on satellites.
- 2 (02:15) **Origin Story: From Family to SpaceX** - Rama traces his path from a family of engineers to founding Satlyt.
- 3 (06:15) **The "Why" for Compute in Space** - Rama explains the dual rationale: societal pushback against data centers and technical efficiency gains.
- 4 (08:31) **The Real Estate and Energy Advantage** - Jason and Rama explore why space is a better location for data centers.
- 5 (11:55) **What Jobs Will Space Compute Do?** - Rama outlines the practical applications for orbital compute at scale.
- 6 (15:37) **Cost Parity: When Does Space Compute Become Affordable?** - Jason asks about the economics of putting compute in orbit.
- 7 (17:59) **Live Demo: Mission Operations Center** - Rama walks through a demo of Satlyt's orbital software platform.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
The TWiST AI Basics series is made possible by Google for Startups!
Today’s show:
Rama Afullo pitched orbital data centers while working at both Google and SpaceX. At the latter, he was told that the previous staffers who made the suggestion “are no longer at the company.”
So he left and started Satlyt, designing software that allows satellites from different manufacturers to run AI onboard and pool their compute into an orbital network.
Rama joins Jason Calacanis on a new AI Basics to explain why compute is headed to space, and what has to happen to make an orbital data center as cost-effective as one located firmly on the ground.
The benefits of orbital compute are clear: 24/7 solar power in sun-synchronous orbit, avoiding local opposition to new data center construction, and providing needed compute to any spot on earth within just 90 minutes.
Join us for an exclusive chat with one of the builders actually bringing this sci-fi dream to life. And get an answer to the ongoing debate: if space is so cold, why do chips in orbit still overheat?
Guest
Rama Afullo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rama-afullo
Satlyt: https://satlyt.ai/
Book your software into orbit: https://satlyt.ai/book-orbit
Related Links
SpaceX and Google both said no. Now his software is riding a SpaceX rocket next to Google’s (TechCrunch): https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/13/satlyt-founded-by-a-former-google-and-spacex-product-manager-raises-8m-to-run-ai-on-satellites/
How Satlyt is building local AI for space with Gemma (DeepMind): https://deepmind.google/models/gemma/gemmaverse/satlyt/
Gemma 3 1B: the small model Satlyt has run in orbit: https://huggingface.co/google/gemma-3-1b-pt
NASA Glenn's High-rate Delay Tolerant Networking (HDTN) software: https://software.nasa.gov/software/LEW-19897-2
Google Project Suncatcher: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/google-research/google-project-suncatcher-facts/
Planet (Planet Labs): https://www.planet.com/
Starcloud: https://www.starcloud.com/starcloud-1