Author: Damian Perera
Date: 1/19/2026
A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that is capable of generating an immense amount of power by surrounding a star and capturing its energy output, a concept conceived by theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson. Capturing the energy emanating from a star can help a civilization meet exponential energy needs.
The literal construction of a Dyson sphere would consist of a sort of scaffolding surrounding an entire star. Due to the technical difficulty of creating such a structure, an alternative solution is proposed. A Dyson swarm can be used instead, which is a collection of independent energy collectors orbiting a star.
The kind of energy collected by a Dyson swarm is the star’s radiant energy, which is light and heat. Collected light and heat can be converted into electrical energy, which can then be transmitted back to Earth through the use of lasers or microwaves. This type of energy conversion is called power beaming, a technology where energy is transmitted through focused beams of electromagnetic radiation capable of travelling long distances.
Energy consumption in data centers is increasing rapidly, a single ChatGPT query consumes around 0.3 to 0.34 watt-hours of electricity, which is equivalent to running a microwave oven for one second. This may seem trivial, but think about how many questions you have asked an AI model this week, and add all the other people who have done the same. It all adds up to a tremendous amount of energy consumption.
A proposed solution to this energy demand is the implementation of a Dyson Sphere/Swarm. Harvested light and heat energy can be transmitted from the star and beamed to Earth. The resulting energy can be used to power the compute infrastructure of AI data centers.
The logistics of how the energy is collected from Earth side will still be a question.There are a few differences in how energy is transmitted via microwaves and lasers. Microwaves can carry tremendous amounts of power and cut through atmospheric conditions better than lasers, but there is an issue with microwave beam divergence (the waves spread out more), which means it requires large receiving antennas. Lasers have smaller beam divergence but are affected by atmospheric interference and require higher power densities to overcome those conditions.
If we are able to create a network of power transmission from a Dyson swarm back to Earth, we could possibly have a sustainable source of energy, which is of course sustainable as long as the star is alive. The problem of running out of stars to collect energy from is a bridge we will cross when we get there.