Tokenization: The Rise of Orbital Cloud Infrastructure

The global tokenization market size reached approx $1.24 trillion a significant increase compared to 2025 $865.54 billion in 2024, with projections of multi-trillion dollar growth by the end of the decade. This growth was primarily driven by regulatory clarity in key jurisdictions. This is part two of a four-part series in which I evaluate the key energy requirements to support the growth of AI-driven tokenization that requires orbital cloud data centers. Part one: 2025 was the year of tokenization. Part three focuses on energy needs to support the growth of AI-driven tokenization, which requires orbital cloud data centers. Part Four focuses on how tokenized edge cloud streaming and AI are transforming sports betting and prediction markets, which is a rapidly evolving immersive experience.

After writing about it sustainability, regulation and taxation of digital assets since 2017, I didn’t think I could ever write this article in my lifetime, especially with my editor, Max Yakubowskistill by my side. So here we go… 2025 is the year that the concept of “orbital cloud” infrastructure has shifted from theoretical to initial implementation, with several companies and research institutions launching or planning to launch the first prototypes of orbital data centers and computing nodes in low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites powered by space solar energy.

President Donald Trump’s executive order Removing barriers to American leadership in artificial intelligencewho helps his own forward The US AI Action Planpublished earlier this year, was followed by the US Department of Energy launch the Genesis Mission, a historic national effort that will use the power of artificial intelligence to accelerate discovery science, strengthen national security and fuel energy innovation. As a result of this policy, several large-scale data center companies are exploring the integration of orbital solar power for energy-intensive blockchain and AI verification processes.

Inaugural launch of orbital cloud network

On December 10, 2025, PowerBank Corporation launched the inaugural DeStarlink Genesis-1 satellite, which marks Orbit AI’s first step toward building its Orbital Cloud network – an architecture where AI computing, connectivity, and blockchain-verified processing occur directly in low-Earth satellites powered by solar energy in space.

Orbit AI is a Singapore-based aerospace pioneer developing a decentralized satellite network in low Earth orbit (DeStarlink), combined with an orbital AI computing and data center infrastructure (DeStarAI), powered entirely by solar energy from space. The system includes solar-powered computing payloads and blockchain-verified nodes in space, which are designed to withstand geopolitical controls. The company is to collaborate with PowerBank Corporation (Canada), Intellitake Technologies Corp (Canada), NVIDIA (US) for high-performance GPUs, and the Ethereum Foundation (Switzerland) for blockchain architecture.

The rise of orbital cloud infrastructure in 2025 is rooted in expanding public sector obligations, the steady decline of satellite launch prices to one-hundredth of shuttle-era levels, and component breakthroughs that collectively reposition space solar technology from a laboratory concept to a plausible utility-scale option. Continuous solar energy in geostationary orbit removes the intermittent limits that hinder terrestrial renewable energy sources. At the same time, metamaterial rectennas have exceeded 90% conversion efficiency thresholds, reducing the land footprint of land recipients and reducing delivered energy costs.

By 2025, the market size of the space-based solar energy market will increase reaches This is forecast to rise steadily to $4.19 billion by 2040, reflecting a robust CAGR of 13.46% between 2025 and 2040.

What is a hyperscale cloud data center?

A hyperscale cloud provider is a large-scale service provider that operates extensive, globally distributed data centers to provide on-demand computing resources. These providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, are characterized by their ability to scale horizontally and vertically to support millions of virtual machines and massive workloads by integrating edge cloud technology to extend their services to smaller, distributed micro data centers and network points closer to users for lower latency and better performance in remote areas.

These large-scale cloud providers store data for AI and use tokenization in two main ways: for processing AI models and for data security/compliance. They form the physical infrastructure that makes data center activities possible. However, these data centers require massive, constant renewable energy (tens to hundreds of MW), with AI driving demand. That’s why hyperscale cloud providers are exploring the concept of placing solar collector and data centers in orbit to harness constant solar energy and relieve stress on Earth’s power grid.

Spade-based solar energy

Space-based solar power, or SBSP, is a promising concept for generating continuous, carbon-free energy from space to power terrestrial networks and hyperscale data centers. In orbit, solar panels could be up to eight times more productive than on Earth and operate almost continuously, significantly reducing the need for traditional battery storage. SBSP can direct energy to ground receiving stations (rectennas) to provide stable, clean energy to high-demand users, such as hyperscale cloud data centers.

SBSP combines several advanced space technologies into a single platform with decentralized LEO networks (DeStarlink), orbital AI data centers (DeStarAI), robotics, wireless energy transmission (microwaves or lasers), and blockchain-powered verification nodes with predictions of $700 billion in growth over the next decade.

SBSP is expensive to develop and has been historically investigated by organizations such as the US NASA, China Academy of Space Technology Corporation, the Japanese Space Agency, European Space Agency, the Indian Space Research Organization, Russian Space Agency, and the World Economic Forum. To date, Caltech (US), JAXA (Japan with Mitsubishi), China and the EU (ASCEND) are actively developing space-based solar power for wireless energy transmission, with Caltech’s recent mission demonstrating the first-ever wireless power bundling in orbit using lightweight technology, while JAXA/MHI and others are focusing on ground/space testing for transmitting energy from orbit for continuous, clean energy worldwide and overcoming weather/night problems.

In addition, several companies are actively working to commercialize space-based solar energy, including major aerospace companies and a growing number of specialized startups. Established aerospace and defense companies are often key players in SBSP research and large systems development to collaborate with government agencies such as Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. A number of other companies, Solaren Corporation (US), Space Solar (UK), Aetherflux (US), EMROD (New Zealand), Reflect Orbital (US), Virtus Solis Technologies (US), Overview Energy, with Dr. Paul Jaffe (US), Lonestar (US), Starcloud (US) are also contributing to the commercialization efforts of the SBSP orbital cloud network.

Tax law changes for commercial solar tax credits and cloud transactions

As part of the One big, beautiful billsigned into law by President Donald Trump, commercial solar tax credits were scaled back, imposing strict new deadlines and conditions, rather than being “cancelled” entirely.

To qualify for the commercial solar tax credit, construction must have begun on or before July 4, 2026, to use the standard timeline, which generally allows up to four years from the start of construction for the project to be completed and placed into service (for example, a project started in 2026 cannot be placed into service until 2030).

Projects that begin construction after July 4, 2026 must be placed in service by December 31, 2027 to qualify for credit.

The commercial project tax credit (under section 48E) will be completely abolished for facilities placed into service after December 31, 2027, if they have not met the deadline for commencement of construction.

Also for a cloud company’s cross-border transactions, the IRS’s final rules, effective January 14, 2025, classify income from cloud transactions as service income, not as real estate rental. This could impact foreign tax credits and cross-border withholding tax planning for these companies.