Leonardo, the state-owned technology giant, announced on Monday (19 February, 2024) that the Ministry of Defence had asked it to study the development of its military space cloud architecture project.

The two-year project, dubbed MILSCA, aims to establish a cutting-edge system that integrates high-performance computing, cloud technology, AI and storage capacity directly in space.

The project, the first of its kind in Europe, promises to provide Italy’s government and armed forces with unprecedented access to strategic data including communications, earth observation, and navigation data – no matter where they are.

MILSCA will be able provide unprecedented speed and power in the sharing on information due to its 100 terabytes of data storage, both on Earth and in space aboard each satellite.

The architecture offers processing power exceeding 250 TFLOPS, equivalent to 250 thousand billion operations per second.

During the initial phase of the study, the architectural framework will be defined, followed by the development of a digital twin.

Leonardo’s Chief Innovation Officer Simone Ungaro said: “In a multi-domain scenario, management, security, and rapid exchange of an ever-increasing amount of data, much of which is tactical, become strategic elements for the country’s defense.”

“We will be the first in Europe to develop a Space Cloud project,” he added.

The space economy is set to exceed $1trn by 2040, according to research and analyst company GlobalData’s 2023 TMT Predictions report.

The rapidly growing space economy is creating an ecosystem of companies involved in a variety of business activities, including payload transportation and infrastructure development.