World’s Largest Radio Telescope Faces Data Storage Challenge – and Global Data Centers offer a Solution
By Rachel Kim, World-Today-news.com - September 26, 2025
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory, poised to become the world’s largest radio telescope, is already confronting a significant hurdle even before full operation: managing the sheer volume of data it will generate. As construction progresses at it’s sites in Western Australia and South Africa, the project is turning to a network of global data centers to ensure this astronomical wealth of details is accessible to researchers worldwide.
The SKA Observatory represents an unprecedented international collaboration in astronomy. Strategically located in the Southern Hemisphere for optimal views of the Milky Way, the observatory comprises two distinct sites. In Western Australia, a field of over 131,000 unique “Christmas tree” shaped antennas is taking shape. Complementing this, the South African site will host 200 large dish antennas.
These antennas will gather data on a range of cosmic phenomena – from faint radio signals and the rhythmic pulses of pulsars to the enigmatic bursts of fast radio bursts – ultimately generating approximately 600 petabytes of data annually. That’s an astounding amount of information requiring robust and scalable storage solutions.
“The challenge isn’t just collecting the data, it’s making it usable for scientists,” explains Dr. Anya Sharma, a leading astrophysicist not directly involved in the SKA project. “The SKA’s potential for revelation is immense, but that potential is unlocked only if researchers can readily access and analyze the data.”
To address this, the SKA Observatory is establishing a network of SKA regional Centres (SRCs) around the globe. A key growth in this effort came in 2024 with Canada’s commitment to the project and the subsequent development of CanSRC – the sole North American SRC dedicated to storing and processing SKA data.
These SRCs will act as crucial hubs, ensuring data is readily available to the international astronomy community. As the SKA Observatory nears its initial data release in 2027, with major operations slated to begin in 2029, the establishment of a robust global data infrastructure is paramount. The SKA isn’t just building a telescope; it’s building a data ecosystem that promises to revolutionize our understanding of the universe.
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