SpaceX teams up with Google to deliver high-speed internet services

Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) said on Thursday it will provide cloud services to SpaceX – Elon Musk’s aerospace company as it ramps up its efforts to provide fast internet services via its Starlink satellites. According to Google Cloud’s senior vice president of technical infrastructure, Urs Holzle:

“Applications and services running in the cloud can be transformative for organizations, whether they’re operating in a highly networked or remote environment. We are delighted to partner with SpaceX to ensure that organizations with distributed footprints have seamless, secure, and fast access to the critical applications and services they need to keep their teams up and running.”

Enterprise customers to get the service in H2 of 2021

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Ground stations, as per SpaceX, will be set up at Google’s data centres, which connect to a slew of Starlink satellites, delivering high-speed internet services through Google Cloud. The service is likely to be available for enterprise customers in the second half of 2021.

According to the latest financial report, Google’s cloud business makes up roughly 7% of its total revenue. Last month, Google-parent Alphabet Inc. reported £32.80 billion of revenue in fiscal Q1, excluding traffic acquisition costs. SpaceX already signed a similar deal with Microsoft last October to connect Azure to its Starlink satellites.

SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell’s remarks

CEO Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX commented on the news on Thursday and said:

“Combining Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency broadband with Google’s infrastructure and capabilities provides global organizations with the secure and fast connection that modern organizations expect. We are proud to work with Google to deliver this access to businesses, public sector organizations, and many other groups operating around the world.”

In separate news from the United States, online food delivery company DoorDash said it swung to a wider-than-expected loss in the fiscal first quarter.

Alphabet’s performance in the stock market

Alphabet Inc. closed almost flat in the stock market on Thursday and was barely bothered in the after-hours trading as well. It is currently exchanging hands at £1,587 per share. Learn more about the different types of stock investments.  

In comparison, the American multinational conglomerate had started the year 2021 at a per-share price of £1,229 after recovering from a low of £760.26 per share in March 2020, when the impact of the COVID-19 crisis was at its peak.

At the time of writing, the U.S. tech giant has a market cap of £1.07 billion and a price to earnings ratio of 28.79.