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Starcloud

blogs.nvidia.com

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Re: Starcloud

#171

Post by hiddencost »

deepanwadhwa wrote: post #130
Reubend wrote: post #3

Last time these folks were mentioned on HN, there was a lot of skepticism that this is really possible to do. The issue is cooling: in space, you can't rely on convection or conduction to do passive cooling, so you can only radiate away heat. However, the radiator would need to be several kilometers big to provide enough cooling, and obviously launching such a large object into space would therefore eat up any cost s…

Not sure if I follow really. Cooling from it's own generated heat? Are we even sure the system would get that hot in the first place? The temperatures can plunge up to -200 degrees. If needed, they'd cool it just like they keep the James Webb Telescope cool.

There are two real challenges in running a data center: how to get power in (reliably), and how to get heat out.

Any data center that isn't generating massive heat is a waste of our time.

And no, JWST is not doing industrial scale cooling.

Re: Starcloud

#172

Post by torginus »

pipe01 wrote: post #160
torginus wrote: post #93

Altman: has stake in nuclear power and AI companies Also Altman: Let's build gigawatts of nuclear for AI Musk: has stake in space and AI companies Also Musk: Let's build AI datacenters in space

This isn't a musk idea though, is it?

Not sure, but the Star-something naming and the video prominently featuring Starships suggests he'll be involved.

Re: Starcloud

#173

Post by hiddencost »

dariusj18 wrote: post #22
Reubend wrote: post #3

Last time these folks were mentioned on HN, there was a lot of skepticism that this is really possible to do. The issue is cooling: in space, you can't rely on convection or conduction to do passive cooling, so you can only radiate away heat. However, the radiator would need to be several kilometers big to provide enough cooling, and obviously launching such a large object into space would therefore eat up any cost s…

Given the water needs of data centers and the ongoing and upcoming water scarcity, I imagine the problem of heat dissipation seems easier to solve, long term, in space.

Wut?

Re: Starcloud

#174

Post by tmvphil »

tmvphil wrote: post #140
caminante wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still keep playing with the numerator. > increase in a risk factor of over 300 Even with a numerator-only view, I suspect it's not fair to characterize the "risk factor" as going up 300x. There's a lot more nuance about orbits in space.

Tell me the nuance then. If people have concerns about Kessler syndrome at the starlink scale then why wouldn't something literally 1000x bigger be even more concerning.

I know this in the same way that even though I don't know the exact credence to assign the probability of particular bad effects from global warming, I can confidently say that an increase by a factor of 1000 of the CO2 emissions would be a bad thing. This is not because I have done a simulation, but instead my beliefs are based on the assumption that while concerned experts might be wrong in the details, they are probably not wrong with a gap of 3 orders of magnitude.

Re: Starcloud

#175

Post by hiddencost »

rpmisms wrote: post #139
xnx wrote: post #35

Shameful to see this on Nvidia's site. They have real engineers and business prowess. This is really shaking my assumptions about the company.

Why is this shameful?

Because it's crank science harvesting money from people who don't understand physics.

Heat is almost impossible to dissipate in space because there's negligible matter to take the heat away.

Re: Starcloud

#176

Post by EricMausler »

Reubend wrote: post #3

Last time these folks were mentioned on HN, there was a lot of skepticism that this is really possible to do. The issue is cooling: in space, you can't rely on convection or conduction to do passive cooling, so you can only radiate away heat. However, the radiator would need to be several kilometers big to provide enough cooling, and obviously launching such a large object into space would therefore eat up any cost s…

Alternatively, assuming they are aware of the cost, what does this say about what they are implying the cost of electricity is going to be?

Re: Starcloud

#178

Post by audunw »

Gravityloss wrote: post #122
amelius wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to share them?

Extremely rough one significant digit analysis from first principles, containing a lot of assumptions: For solar panels: Assuming area of 1000 square meters (30m x 30m square), solar irradiance of 1 kW/m^2, efficiency of 0.2. As a result power is 200 kW. For radiators: Stefan-Boltzmann constant 6E-8, temperature difference of 300 K, emissivity of one, we get total radiator power 1000 x 6E-8 x 300^4 = 486 kW. The radi…

Question: for a larger system, can a heat pump be used to increase the temperature of the radiator without making the rest of the system hotter? Thus radiating more heat from fewer panels?

Re: Starcloud

#179

Post by runlevel1 »

Their numbers strike me as very optimistic:

    *Table 1. Cost comparison of a single 40 MW cluster operated for 10 years in space vs on land.*

    | Cost Item                     | Terrestrial                     | Space
    |:------------------------------|:--------------------------------|:----------------
    | Energy (10 years)             | $140m @ $0.04 per kWh           | $2m cost of solar array
    | Launch                        | None                            | $5m (single launch of compute module, solar & radiators)
    | Cooling (chiller energy cost) | $7m @ 5% of overall power usage | More efficient cooling architecture taking advantage of higher ΔT in space
    | Water usage                   | 1.7m tons @ 0.5L/kWh            | Not required
    | Enclosure (Sat. Bus/Building) | Approximately equivalent cost   | Approximately equivalent cost
    | Backup power supply           | $20m                            | Not required
    | All other DC hardware         | Approximately equivalent cost   | Approximately equivalent cost
    | Radiation shielding           | Not required                    | $1.2m @ 1 kg of shielding per kW of compute and $30/kg launch cost
    | Cost Balance                  | $167m                           | $8.2m
Source: Page 4 of their whitepaper https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf

Re: Starcloud

#180

Post by ncr100 »

burnte wrote: post #144
Reubend wrote: post #3

Last time these folks were mentioned on HN, there was a lot of skepticism that this is really possible to do. The issue is cooling: in space, you can't rely on convection or conduction to do passive cooling, so you can only radiate away heat. However, the radiator would need to be several kilometers big to provide enough cooling, and obviously launching such a large object into space would therefore eat up any cost s…

Even beyond cooling, just getting all the hardware up there is extremely costly, and for what benefit over ground based DCs? The cooling is the ongoing problem but the cost of lifting it there obliterates all the other problems, IMO.

And who is The Law, in space? What's to prevent E.G. Amazon Kuiper or Musk Starlink from crashing one of their vehicles into the array, when they want to takeover their market?
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