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Server farms, especially ones with tons of GPUs, see little benefit from being in LEO. They cannot radiate heat efficiently, especially this amount of heat. Plus, unless boosted every now and then, they'll eventually burn up.
How do you fix a hardware issue up there?
None of it adds up on the balance sheet. It makes zero sense to do this in space. The only benefit is hyping up the AI market because space. That benefit won't last very long in our newscycle.
I did the math for it, and you'd need a radiator at least a kilometer wide for a 'typical' datacenter setup, according to the equation here: https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/heatrad.php
A = P / (ε * σ * T^4), where
P = the power of waste heat the radiator can get rid of (watts)
σ = 5.670373×10-8 = Stefan-Boltzmann constant (W m-2K-4)
ε = emissivity of radiator (theoretical maximum is 1.0 for a perfect black body, real world radiator will be less. Should be at least 0.8 or above to be worth-while)
A = area of radiator (m2)
T = temperature of radiator, this assumes temperature of space is zero degrees (degrees K)
x^4 = raise x to the fourth power, i.e, x * x * x * x
Probably bigger if you don't want the coolant to be boiling hot.
...Do you know how expensive that would be?
I'll give you a hint: orders of magnitude more expensive than geothermal loops for Earth-based datacenters. And even those are apparently too expensive for them to construct.
Musk is completely delusional, and he's surrounded by yes men telling him want he wants to hear.
Pretty sure the largest structures on the ISS is a toss-up between the thermal radiators and the solar panels.
So massive expense to generate power and massive expense to dissipate the waste heat. You know, that waste heat that is already causing water issues near data centers on earth in an environment that we have had centuries of experience working in.
Elon is tripping balls again
The solar panels also contribute a large amount of drag in thin remaining atmosphere at that altitude, requiring periodic reboosts, which requires fuel deliveries. The drag is substantial enough that the ISS rotates its solar panels to be flat during the night half of orbit to minimize it.
Why is anyone reporting on what the world's luckiest ket head thinks? Who cares? His brain is full of holes. He did nazi salutes and is a right-wing extremist. At least most ket heads just stop showering, get really into camping at festivals, and listen to shit music. This one talks too much.
Not only are the disadvantages many, but what the fuck even is the advantage?
The fantasy seems to be the higher solar radiation flux, so the solar array can be smaller.
...And real estate costs/legal issues, I guess?
That's technically true, but silly. It's like saying "hey, we'd need less cooling area if we built the server farm at the bottom of the ocean!" But even that's not a great analogy; it'd literally be easier to build and maintain at the bottom of the ocean than geosync orbit.
Musk vs Huang, hmmm tough choice lmao, Jensen was probably trying to be polite and not just say that's dumb as shit
Musk just wants to hype up this idea so maybe companies will pay SpaceX to try to do this, it's marketing for his own company
They are both corrupt American oligarchs.
Don't get me wrong, there are oligarchs everywhere, but American ones in particular have their own nuances so to speak.
I figure Jensen is much smarter than Elon
I think they are both very smart and shrewd individuals. That doesn't mean they are not subject to common human weaknesses like narcsissism, blinding opulence, arrogance and less common ones such as regressiveness and lack of humanity.
Fascinating how lack of humanity can be a common human weakness
Out say by the standards of our time, it's less common than the other weakness I mentioned.
Elon Musk says....
He says a lot of shit, the world would be a better place if everyone would have ignored this idiot since he was born. Don't repost his bullshit, don't promote him, ignore him and hope he goes away soon.
I heard he likes to drink pee
I don't think so. Current AI hardware is not really space proof, and shielding it would be cost prohibitive.
Let them send a cluster of AI machines to the ISS so they can run it there, and see how the hardware copes.
And, BTW, cooling will be a serious pain in the astronauts underwear.
Elmo is lying again, somebody call for help to get him his meds!
This is my once a month request that my favorite Muppet not be used as a derogatory term for musk. I love Elmo. It makes me sad to have people use his name as an insult.
I know, I know, it's hugely unfair to Elmo, but I refuse to call that asshole by his real name, it just depresses me having to write it.
Similarly, trump is the Cheeto, which is hugely unfair to Cheetos, but I refuse to write down that name if I can avoid it
Didn’t Jeff Bezos also say this? Where are they getting this from?
Ok? How does Elon, the man with the biggest brain cells, expect to cool these space data centers?
Hmm yeah, where would someone dissipate heat in space...
Are you suggesting that it's easy to do this?
"Easy" is not the word I would use. But it's fairly simple. Space is ~-250*F. Run a closed liquid cooling loop into the walls of the craft or something.
That's not how space works though. It's a vacuum. It doesn't work the same way as on earth. What temperature do you think the side pointing to sun is? And what temperature do you think the side that is away from the sun is? Heat is just not going to magically transfer into space.
There's nothing magical about heat transfer.
https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/07/all-radiators.html
You are right in that it is simple, but it is simple in the worst way; you can't just shed heat in space. You have to convert it and radiate it away, which takes infrastructure and power. If the ISS had the compute capacity of a datacenter, the required radiators would engulf the station.
Also, datacenters are manned. Things break. In space, you need to either leave the earth's protective magnetosphere or do constant station-keeping because you're close to the atmosphere. If you leave the magnetosphere, you have to shield all of your electronics which adds a lot of weight and you can forget using the latest CPUs because they can't handle the high energy particle bombardment, even with shielding.
Yes there is. You need to be able to transfer heat to something else. It doesn't just magically disappear. Space is a vacuum. I think you watch too many movies. You probably think that people will just instantly freeze in space without gear on.
I'll give you an example. Do you have one of those water bottles that can keep your drink cold for like a day? The space in between is a vacuum. Why do you think that the liquid inside can say so cold for so long? It's the same principle. Imagine a data center floating around in this space, there is nowhere for the heat to go.
The reason why earth is warm is because the sun radiates and heats up the ground on earth. This is also why it's colder the higher you go within the first few layers of our atmosphere and hotter near the ground.
Basically, you have to radiate heat away from the data center in this case or transfer heat to one area or the other. It's not as simple as being like, hey space, take my heat will you? There is nothing to transfer it to.
Yes there is.
Oh okay. In that case , it's cooled with magic. 🪄
The only real way to do heat transfer in space is through infrared. But that is not very efficient, so most compute in space is managed to reduce heat as much as possible. Data centers, or even just a few 2-4u servers with GPUs produce significantly more heat.
What if the craft is in the sun? Then, you not only have to dump the heat from the onboard servers, but also the sun. These changes are rapid, and not easily managed. Plus, the cold side would still need something to radiate into. Heat does not transfer the same way in a vacuum, even closed loop systems on the ground need air to dump heat into. And these companies don't even want to use that because it's not efficient, so they waste our water instead.
Make it make sense.
"Elon Musk says...". Me: Please don't.
Professor! Lava! Hot!