Technology

The thing that people miss in this is that the feature they're seeking by putting servers in space is only to have servers outside of any jurisdiction, with the advantages that it might bring

I don't think the point is to really build datacenters in space. The point is to convince investors that it can be done in a profitable manner so some people can create a fake businesses out of it and siphon money off the system. Much like the same as trying to convince investors that LLM + more money = AGI

Ridiculous, you can't have cloud computing in space, there's no atmosphere!

Well its a great ideal if you happen to be a company with a space program, sounds like a very lucrative venture.

Don’t data-centers require massive cooling?

Just tell Elmo to add bigger CPU and GPU fans. That'll work.

Considering the ludicrous price to put each pound of equipment into orbit, I'd like to invite them to send as much hardware as they can in to (high) geostationary orbit so they can find out how well a vacuum does NOT promote radiating heat

Edit: also forgot about solar radiation flipping bits. I love the idea of them having to reboot the machine (if they even can) remotely once ever 15 minutes

There's another problem that nobody mentions. Putting thousands of additional satellites into space would seriously increase the risk of Kessler Syndrome occurring.

Mr Musk has to justify that 1.75t valuation somehow

My question is always how the hell are you going to cool them. Do you know hard it is to move heat in a vacuum?

The idea of putting data centers in low Earth orbit sounds cool at first. It feels futuristic. It feels like something that should be efficient. It is not.

Yes, space is cold. Yes, you get a lot of solar power. Those are the two points everyone repeats. What they leave out is basic physics and cost.

Cooling in space is not free. There is no convection. Heat only leaves through radiation. That means giant radiator panels. AI racks throw off massive heat loads. The more compute you add, the more radiator surface area you need. That adds mass. Mass costs money to launch.

Even with companies like SpaceX driving launch prices down, it is still extremely expensive per kilogram. And servers are not permanent infrastructure. They get replaced every three to five years. You cannot economically upgrade racks in orbit the way you do in a building on Earth.

Then you have radiation. Either you harden the electronics, which makes them slower and more expensive, or you accept higher failure rates and build in heavy redundancy. Maintenance becomes a logistical nightmare. A failed power supply on Earth is a service call. In orbit it is a robotics problem.

Meanwhile hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google put data centers next to cheap power, fiber backbones, and cold climates. It is boring. It is practical. It works. Orbital data centers only make sense if we already have large scale industry in space. We do not.

And what really makes these threads irritating is the obvious rage bait framing. Throw up a clickbait title about AI destroying the planet or Big Tech trying to escape Earth and you attract people who already hate AI. The discussion stops being about engineering and economics and turns into ideological noise.

If someone wants to seriously debate energy efficiency or scaling limits, fine. But pretending near Earth orbit is some obvious solution is not serious analysis. It is a cool sci fi concept. It is not a rational infrastructure strategy.

They're a great idea if you happen to own a company making AI, a company making rockets, and a company controlling public opinion.

Whatever happened to resource efficiency, being able to do more for less energy? This whole thing is super unsustainable.

Naive question, but would bit-flip also be a problem without the atmosphere to shield (some) radiation?

Wouldn't it be cheaper to put it underground?

Of course they are, same with undersea data centers (for different reasons).

But it doesn't matter. In the late-stage capitalism we find ourselves in, you don't need a real product, nor a promising prototype. You don't even need a good idea, you just need the promise that you'll come up with a good idea soon. That's enough to get the investors drooling, the shareholders hyped, and the gullible idiots engaged.

And you only have to maintain that long enough to pay yourself and your insiders some fat checks. Then when inevitably, reality barges in and people start to realize it was all bullshit and pipe dreams, you've already cashed out. If your PR team is good, the media and your sycophantic fans will praise you as a visionary who was simply, "ahead of their time." And you can go on to rip off more people.

It's basically Patreon scams but with billions of dollars.

Before even considering radiation damage, hopium $200/kg launch costs mean 15c/kwh electricity. The you add the cost of specialized panels and radiation emitters. At least 20x that of earthly systems.

Maybe for a space based population a data center in space would work. This is just taking off site hosting too far.

Dumping heat in space is actually hard to do. You'd need huge radiators for radiative emission cooling.