Last week, Google Cloud announced that it reached an agreement with the company SpaceX to offer satellite internet services through Starlink. The tech giant will provide its cloud infrastructure for Elon Musk’s connectivity project. This agreement involves SpaceX installing Starlink ground terminals in Google’s cloud data centers, which will connect to Starlink satellites.

Musk customers will be able to access the internet from Google’s infrastructure, while so-called ‘Big Tech’ will be able to provide a faster and more secure connection in hard-to-reach areas, such as large rural areas.

This service will be available to business customers of both companies from the second half of 2021 , Google said in a statement . The first Starlink terminal in a Google data center will be located in Ohio, United States. The rest of the data centers will be announced in the coming months. Urs Hölzle, vice president of infrastructure for Google Cloud, commented:

“Applications and services that run in the cloud can be transformative for organizations, whether they operate in a networked or remote environment,” The executive also assures that SpaceX will help provide “fluid, secure and fast access to critical applications and services that customers need to keep their equipment running.“

Google, SpaceX and Starlink go against Amazon

This alliance also strengthens the position of both companies in the competition against the cloud services of Amazon. It provides hosting on its AWS cloud and also plans to launch some 3,000 satellites into orbit with the Kuiper project, to provide satellite internet .

For now, SpaceX has put 1,625 satellites in orbit , out of which 1,550 there are in operation and provide beta-phase satellite internet to customers in various parts of the world. Meanwhile, Amazon is just about to launch its own. Last October, Microsoft also struck a similar agreement with SpaceX to connect its Azure cloud to Starlink and use its satellites to offer mobile data centers globally.