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Datacenters in space aren't going to work

taranis.ie

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Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#11

Post by fhars »

ReptileMan wrote: post #5
yardie wrote: post #4

I asked Google for more information about AI datacenter in space. This was the first sentence, 'AI data centers are being developed in space to handle the massive energy demands of AI, using solar power and the vacuum of space for cooling.' > After laughing at "the vacuum of space for cooling" I closed the page because there was nothing serious there. Basic high school physics student would be laughing at that senten…

You can radiate the excess energy away on the non-sun facing part. In theory.

There are even commercially available prototypes of that vacuum cooling technology, if you want to perform your own experiments with that concept: https://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Stainless-Ounce-Drink-Bottle/...

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#12

Post by Sharlin »

ReptileMan wrote: post #5
yardie wrote: post #4

I asked Google for more information about AI datacenter in space. This was the first sentence, 'AI data centers are being developed in space to handle the massive energy demands of AI, using solar power and the vacuum of space for cooling.' > After laughing at "the vacuum of space for cooling" I closed the page because there was nothing serious there. Basic high school physics student would be laughing at that senten…

You can radiate the excess energy away on the non-sun facing part. In theory.

Yes. And it's an absolutely terrible way to get rid of heat. Cooling in space is a major problem because the actually effective ways to do it are not available.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#13

Post by dayjah »

ReptileMan wrote: post #5
yardie wrote: post #4

I asked Google for more information about AI datacenter in space. This was the first sentence, 'AI data centers are being developed in space to handle the massive energy demands of AI, using solar power and the vacuum of space for cooling.' > After laughing at "the vacuum of space for cooling" I closed the page because there was nothing serious there. Basic high school physics student would be laughing at that senten…

You can radiate the excess energy away on the non-sun facing part. In theory.

Serious question: how in theory?

I’m under the impression you need to radiate through matter (air, water, physical materials, etc).

Is my understanding of the theory just wrong?

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#14

Post by Avicebron »

ReptileMan wrote: post #5
yardie wrote: post #4

I asked Google for more information about AI datacenter in space. This was the first sentence, 'AI data centers are being developed in space to handle the massive energy demands of AI, using solar power and the vacuum of space for cooling.' > After laughing at "the vacuum of space for cooling" I closed the page because there was nothing serious there. Basic high school physics student would be laughing at that senten…

You can radiate the excess energy away on the non-sun facing part. In theory.

It's not the Sun..it's the lack of medium.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#15

Post by awei »

The one thing that space has going for itself is space. You could have way bigger datacenters than on Earth and just leave them there, assuming Starship makes it cheap enough to get them there. I think it would maybe make sense if 2 things: - We are sure we will need a lot of gpus for the next 30-40 years. - We can make the solar panels + cooling + GPUs have a great life expectancy, so that we can just leave them up there and accumulate them.

Latency wise it seems okay for llm training to put them higher than Starlink to make them last longer and avoid decelerating because of the atmosphere. And for inference, well, if the infra can be amortized over decades than it might make the inference price cheap enough to endure additional latencies.

Concerning communication, SpaceX I think already has inter-starlinks laser comms, at least a prototype.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#16

Post by RugnirViking »

fhars wrote: post #11
ReptileMan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can radiate the excess energy away on the non-sun facing part. In theory.

There are even commercially available prototypes of that vacuum cooling technology, if you want to perform your own experiments with that concept: https://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Stainless-Ounce-Drink-Bottle/...

this kind of sarcasm will go over their head. People truly don't understand vacuums

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#17

Post by cactusfrog »

awei wrote: post #15

The one thing that space has going for itself is space. You could have way bigger datacenters than on Earth and just leave them there, assuming Starship makes it cheap enough to get them there. I think it would maybe make sense if 2 things: - We are sure we will need a lot of gpus for the next 30-40 years. - We can make the solar panels + cooling + GPUs have a great life expectancy, so that we can just leave them up…

We have tons of space on earth. Cooling in space would be so expensive.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#18

Post by morcus »

api wrote: post #8

What about on the Moon? My understanding is that heat is the killer. There you could sink pipes into the surface and use that as a heat sink. There are “peaks of eternal light” near the poles where you could get 24/7 solar power. Latency becomes high but you send large batches of work. Probably not at all economical compared to anywhere on Earth but the physics work better than orbit where you need giant heat sinks.

The Moon doesn't have a magnetic field, though, so the second half of the article discussing difficulties due to radiation would still apply, right?

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#19

Post by moffkalast »

awei wrote: post #15

The one thing that space has going for itself is space. You could have way bigger datacenters than on Earth and just leave them there, assuming Starship makes it cheap enough to get them there. I think it would maybe make sense if 2 things: - We are sure we will need a lot of gpus for the next 30-40 years. - We can make the solar panels + cooling + GPUs have a great life expectancy, so that we can just leave them up…

Launching a datacenter like that carries an absurd cost even with Starship type launchers. Unless TSMC moves its production to LEO it's a joke of a proposal.

Underwater [0] is the obvious choice for both space and cooling. Seal the thing and chuck it next to an internet backbone cable.

> More than half the world’s population lives within 120 miles of the coast. By putting datacenters underwater near coastal cities, data would have a short distance to travel

> Among the components crated up and sent to Redmond are a handful of failed servers and related cables. The researchers think this hardware will help them understand why the servers in the underwater datacenter are eight times more reliable than those on land.

[0] https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/pr...

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#20

Post by cuuupid »

I don't agree with the logic that "something is hard/can't be done right now" is equivalent to "this is a terrible idea and won't work."

There are dozens of companies solving each problem outlined here; if we never attempt the 'hard' thing we will never progress. The author could have easily taken a tone of 'these are all the things that are hard that we will need to solve first' but actively chose to take the 'catastrophically bad idea' angle.

From a more positive angle, I'm a big fan of Northwood Space and they're tackling the 'Communications' problem outlined in this article pretty well.

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