It sounds like something from a science fiction movie, but Stephen Eisele is confident that one day his company will open a data centre on the Moon.

“The way we see it is that by putting the data centre in space, you’re really offering unparalleled security,” says the president of Lonestar Data Holdings.

Last month, the Florida-based firm claimed to have successfully tested a tiny data centre the size of a hardback book that hitched a ride to the Moon on the Athena Lunar Lander from US space exploration firm Intuitive Machines. This, in turn, had been launched by a rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Data centres are the vast warehouses that house stacks of computers that store and process data used by websites, companies and governments.

Lonestar says that putting them on the Moon will offer customers secure, reliable data processing, while taking advantage of unlimited solar energy to power them.