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Data centers in space makes no sense

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Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#431

Post by TheDong »

dumbfounder wrote: post #415

You can debate this until you are blue in the face. If the costs are less they will do it. If they aren’t they won’t do it. That’s the only sense that needs to be made.

Ah, yes, the "efficient market hypothesis", it's well known that no company has ever gone bankrupt because every company only does things that are optimally efficient and profitable.

No company has ever made an investment in something that ended up being more expensive than calculated, or so expensive it bankrupted them.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#432

Post by edoceo »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #419
space_fountain wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like this. Everything about operating a datacenter in space is more difficult than it is to operate one on earth. 1. The capital costs are higher, you have to expend tons of energy to put it into orbit 2. The maintenance costs are higher because the lifetime of satellites is pretty low 3. Refurbishment is next to impossible 4. Networking is harder, either you are ok with a relatively small datacenter or you have…

What about sourcing and the cost of energy? Solar Panels more efficient, no bad weather, and 100% in sunlight (depending on orbit) in space. Not that it makes up for the items you listed, but it may not be true that everything is more difficult in space.

I'm stretched to think of one thing that is easier in space. Anything I could imagine still requires getting there (in one piece)

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#433

Post by alexandre_m »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #260
guluarte wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also cities in Mars, like who the fuck wants to live there?

I would, it would be an adventure. You could have said the same thing about Europe or America. We could have just stayed in Africa, and the people like you did. But taking the leap worked pretty well, even if it was tough at the beginning.

I'd rather colonize antarctica than mars.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#434

Post by pclmulqdq »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #419
space_fountain wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like this. Everything about operating a datacenter in space is more difficult than it is to operate one on earth. 1. The capital costs are higher, you have to expend tons of energy to put it into orbit 2. The maintenance costs are higher because the lifetime of satellites is pretty low 3. Refurbishment is next to impossible 4. Networking is harder, either you are ok with a relatively small datacenter or you have…

What about sourcing and the cost of energy? Solar Panels more efficient, no bad weather, and 100% in sunlight (depending on orbit) in space. Not that it makes up for the items you listed, but it may not be true that everything is more difficult in space.

Solar panels in space are more efficient, but on the ground we have dead dinosaurs we can burn. The efficiency gain is also more than offset by the fact that you can't replace a worn out panel. A few years into the life of your satellite its power production drops.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#435

Post by hannasanarion »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #263
Findecanor wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> win the AI race I keep seeing that term, but if it does not mean "AI arms race" or "AI surveillance race", what does it mean? Those are the only explanations that I have found, and neither is any race that I would like to see anyone win.

Big tech businesses are convinced that there must be some profitable business model for AI, and are undeterred by the fact that none has yet been found. They want to be the first to get there, raking in that sweet sweet money (even though there's no evidence yet that there is money to be made here). It's industry-wide FOMO, nothing more.

People keep saying this but it's simply untrue. AI inference is profitable. Openai and Anthropic have 40-60% gross margins. If they stopped training and building out future capacity they would already be raking in cash.

They're losing money now because they're making massive bets on future capacity needs. If those bets are wrong, they're going to be in very big trouble when demand levels off lower than expected. But that's not the same as demand being zero.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#436

Post by pclmulqdq »

trhway wrote: post #338
space_fountain wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like this. Everything about operating a datacenter in space is more difficult than it is to operate one on earth. 1. The capital costs are higher, you have to expend tons of energy to put it into orbit 2. The maintenance costs are higher because the lifetime of satellites is pretty low 3. Refurbishment is next to impossible 4. Networking is harder, either you are ok with a relatively small datacenter or you have…

>1. The capital costs are higher, you have to expend tons of energy to put it into orbit putting 1KW of solar on land - $2K, putting it into orbit on Starship (current ground-based heavy solar panels, 40kg for 4m2 of 1KW in space) - anywhere between $400 and $4K. Add to that that the costs on Earth will only be growing, while costs in space will be falling. Ultimately Starship's costs will come down to the bare cost…

> putting 1KW of solar on land - $2K, putting it into orbit on Starship (current ground-based heavy solar panels, 40kg for 4m2 of 1KW in space) - anywhere between $400 and $4K.

What starship? The fantasy rocket Musk has been promising for 10 years or the real one that has thus far delivered only one banana worth of payload into orbit?

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#437

Post by kristjansson »

gpt5 wrote: post #235
lancewiggs wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exiting the 5th best social network and the 10th (or worse) best AI company and selling them to a decent company. It probably increases Elon's share of the combined entity. It delivers on a promise to investors that he will make money for them, even as the underlying businesses are lousy.

I'm confused about the level of conversation here. Can we actually run the math on heat dissipation and feasibility? A Starlink satellite uses about 5K Watts of solar power. It needs to dissipate around that amount (+ the sun power on it) just to operate. There are around 10K starlink satellites already in orbit, which means that the Starlink constellation is already effectively equivalent to a 50 Mega-watt (in a rou…

50MW might be one aisle of a really dense DC. A single rack might draw 120kW.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#439

Post by pclmulqdq »

sam wrote: post #414
beloch wrote: post #115

I would not assume cooling has been worked out. Space is a vacuum. i.e. The lack-of-a-thing that makes a thermos great at keeping your drink hot. A satellite is, if nothing else, a fantastic thermos. A data center in space would necessarily rely completely on cooling by radiation, unlike a terrestrial data center that can make use of convection and conduction. You can't just pipe heat out into the atmosphere or build…

This is mistaken. In space a radiator can radiate to cold (2.7K) deep space. A thermos on earth cannot. The temperature difference between the inner and outer walls of the thermos is much lower and it’s the temperature difference which determines the rate of cooling.

"Radiate" is exactly what you have to do, and that is extremely slow. You need a huge area to dissipate the amount of power you are talking about.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#440

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #419
space_fountain wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like this. Everything about operating a datacenter in space is more difficult than it is to operate one on earth. 1. The capital costs are higher, you have to expend tons of energy to put it into orbit 2. The maintenance costs are higher because the lifetime of satellites is pretty low 3. Refurbishment is next to impossible 4. Networking is harder, either you are ok with a relatively small datacenter or you have…

What about sourcing and the cost of energy? Solar Panels more efficient, no bad weather, and 100% in sunlight (depending on orbit) in space. Not that it makes up for the items you listed, but it may not be true that everything is more difficult in space.

Let's say with no atmosphere and no night cycle, a space solar panel is 5x better. Deploying 5x as many solar panels on the ground is still going to come in way under the budget of the space equivalent.
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