Abu Dhabi-built satellite flies NVIDIA chips, Mistral models in orbit

The latest:

Altair-1, the first satellite in a planned $1 billion, 50-satellite constellation, has reached orbit carrying NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin edge modules running Mistral’s models, according to NVIDIA. The satellite was integrated by Loft Orbital and built in Abu Dhabi by Orbitworks, a joint venture between Loft Orbital and Marlan Space. NVIDIA said it performs real-time Earth observation and autonomous operations in orbit.

Details:

• The Abu Dhabi link: Orbitworks, the Abu Dhabi manufacturer that built Altair-1, is a joint venture between Loft Orbital and Marlan Space, according to NVIDIA. The company said the satellite carries on-board autonomous capabilities, with the edge computing handled by Jetson AGX Orin modules rather than relayed to ground stations.
• The constellation: NVIDIA said Altair-1 is the first of 50 planned satellites in a constellation valued at $1 billion. The company did not set out a launch schedule for the remaining 49 spacecraft, nor name the customers or operators expected to use the constellation’s Earth observation output.
• The French frame: NVIDIA presented the launch as part of a wider French push, saying companies there are deploying agentic computing across space, financial services, the public sector and scientific research. The company dated the groundwork to the AI Action Summit in February 2025 and the Choose France summits of 2025 and 2026.
• The hardware: Bull is extending European AI server production to NVIDIA Vera Rubin Ultra NVL72 systems, planned for 2028, with trays produced in Europe and rack integration at its Angers factory, which NVIDIA said was inaugurated on Oct. 2.
• The models: Mistral introduced its Large 4 open model under private preview last week, with what NVIDIA described as state-of-the-art open-weight performance in cyber defence, manufacturing, finance and multimodal tasks. Separately, NVIDIA said its Nemotron open models are running in production at French organisations requiring sovereign data handling.
• Public sector: LINAGORA and Docaposte secured the CANUT framework agreement, making Twake.ai, built on Nemotron, the sole referenced sovereign digital workplace for more than 2,500 French public organisations, according to NVIDIA. In banking, SBS is launching a platform letting banks run governed generative and agentic services inside their own environments.
• Industrial results: L’Oréal is integrating NVIDIA ALCHEMI into research workflows, with NVIDIA saying computational prediction combined with lab work can accelerate discovery up to 100x. Mirakl has onboarded more than 70 million products, cutting seller catalogue onboarding to under two hours.
• Infrastructure agents: In Côte-d’Or, ThinkDeep and Akila built a digital-twin agent managing nearly 5,800 kilometres of roads and buildings, which NVIDIA said has cut total operating costs by 10% with a 30% target as deployment progresses. Port Sud de France runs goods processing and port security on the same platform.
• Quantum work: Alice & Bob has integrated NVIDIA’s NVQLink platform for its superconducting cat qubits, in what NVIDIA described as a demonstration that GPUs can make quantum error correction more efficient. Quandela is using NVQLink to link a DGX Spark system with its photonic qubits.

Between the lines:

The Altair-1 configuration puts Gulf manufacturing, American silicon and French open models in a single spacecraft, which complicates the sovereign AI framing NVIDIA applies to the rest of its French announcements. Sovereignty here describes where data and model weights sit, not where the hardware is made.

What’s next

NVIDIA chief executive Jensen Huang delivers the GTC Berlin keynote on Wednesday, Oct. 21. Fondation Inria’s working group on open-source advanced modelling is due to publish findings in the spring.

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