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Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers

#31

Post by ggreer »

ForHackernews wrote: post #9

Tyranny of the rocket equation[0] makes it hard for me to conceive how an orbital data centre could ever make sense. If you just want to escape permitting laws, why not float it in international waters? That's a much more accessible and hospitable environment than LEO. [0] https://archive.is/qp4gP

Space gets you 24/7 solar power. To run a data center for 12 hours without sunlight, you'd need massive batteries. Also oceans have weather and corrosion.

The issue with putting stuff in space isn't the kinetic energy required. In LEO that's about 30 megajoules per kilogram or $5 worth of propellant. The issue is that orbital launch vehicles are not reusable, so you must destroy an expensive rocket to get your payload to orbit. All of these space datacenter efforts are betting that Starship will be fully reusable.

Re: Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers

#32

Post by jcranmer »

jobead wrote: post #8

Why is everyone so focused on heat when cosmic rays randomly scrambling memory is going to be a much bigger problem?

When I was peripherally working on some HPC stuff, there was a comment by one of the hardware guys that it mattered which national lab you were building the supercomputer for, because the guys at high altitude like Los Alamos get a lot more bitflips than someone closer to sea-level like Argonne. Although that said, for an exascale supercomputer, the mean time between uncorrected bit flip somewhere in the machine is on the order of a few hours, which means that large supercomputer-scale workloads should actually expect to hit a bit flip in their computation.

Re: Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers

#34

Post by OutOfHere »

The best thing for space GPUs would to run at a much high temperature, thereby allowing the radiator to be fairly small. This would require a special high-temperature GPU, with robust radiation protection and error correction, ideally in solar orbit. I have a video https://youtu.be/s7Mv_OcBXI8 covering the approach for heat rejection.

Re: Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers

#36

Post by short_sells_poo »

khuey wrote: post #23

I'm not usually an "AI is going to kill us all" kind of person but on the off chance we do get Skynet/etc why would we give the machines the literal high ground?

Because that's the next generation's problem, and we can do more to mortgage their future for our own luxury :)

Re: Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers

#37

Post by bluecalm »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #13
arjie wrote: post #11

Only a single order of magnitude of cost? So a $4b data center on Earth delivers the same value as a $40b data center in Space? So if you have greater than a 95% operating margin and capacity constraints (either due to nation environmental law, power limits, or other such blockers) then this is a no-brainer - a 95% operating margin becomes a 50% operating margin. The return on capital is much much lower so you have t…

It assumes $44/kg to launch into orbit. Idk where that came from if it's a musk claim or what but it's ludicrous against current costs. Currently still at thousands/kg and dropping but nowhere near $44 and I haven't heard anyone claim that's likely who isn't selling a rocket company.

The plan is to launch from Earth in the beginning stages and then switch to launching from the Moon which has no atmosphere so you don't need rockets and can use an electromagnetic gun instead. That requires satellite manufacturing on the Moon and I guess the minerals required will come from asteroid mining.

That's my understanding of what Elon said about how it's going to work.

Re: Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers

#38

Post by xnx »

OutOfHere wrote: post #29
tristanj wrote: post #5

Economics calculator for Orbital vs Terrestrial Data Centers https://andrewmccalip.com/space-datacenters You can play around with the cost sliders to estimate the economics, but even being quite optimistic, space data centers cost ~2-3x of their terrestrial counterparts.

You are altogether externalizing the cost of carbon dioxide emissions that humanity has to pay for. The resulting global warming is not a joke. The heat problem cumulatively is bigger on Earth than it would be in space.

Cost = emmissions

Re: Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers

#39

Post by 6510 »

Zigurd wrote: post #27

Remember space manufacturing? When the first modules of ISS were launched 27 years ago, that was supposed to be the next big thing. Space manufacturing, asteroid mining, and space data centers are pipedreams. The capital equipment is too heavy, and 100% forever automated operations are not realistic.

It's still full of delicious rocks with completely insane market value. They sit there waiting for our greed and capabilities to reach escape velocity. Some day there will be a TEMU space station drop shipping custom fidget spinners to wherever we desire them. Probably not any time soon but eventually...

Re: Thermodynamics rules future orbital data centers

#40

Post by macspoofing »

>Why Orbital Data Centers Are Harder Than Silicon Valley Thinks

Who thinks they are easy? Elon Musk? The guy that spews obvious (even to him) bullshit like we're going to Mars in the next 5 years?

I don't even want to read the article. It is obvious that Orbital Data Centers have MASSIVE engineering challenges. They may never be cost-effective.

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