More Tech Moguls Want to Build Data Centers in Outer Space (msn.com)
- Reference: 0180101971
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/11/17/0527202/more-tech-moguls-want-to-build-data-centers-in-outer-space
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/now-tech-moguls-want-to-build-data-centers-in-outer-space/ar-AA1QwZEM
"But they could in the future, perhaps as soon as a decade or so from now, according to [2]an analysis by Phil Metzger, a research professor at the University of Central Florida and formerly of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."
> "Space enthusiasts (comme moi) have long sought a business case to enable human migration beyond our home world," he [3]posted on X amid the new hype. "I think AI servers in space is the first real business case that will lead to many more...."
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> The argument essentially boils down to the belief that AI's needs are eventually going to grow so great that we need to move to outer space. There the sun's power can be more efficiently harvested. In space, the sun's rays can be direct and constant for solar panels to collect — no clouds, no rainstorms, no nighttime. Demands for cooling could also be cut because of the vacuum of space. Plus, there aren't those pesky regulations that executives like to complain about, slowing construction of new power plants to meet the data-center needs. In space, no one can hear the Nimbys scream. "We will be able to beat the cost of terrestrial data centers in space in the next couple of decades," Bezos [4]said at a tech conference last month . "Space will end up being one of the places that keeps making Earth better."
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> It's still early days. At Alphabet, Google's plans sound almost conservative. The search-engine company in recent days [5]announced Project Suncatcher , which it describes as a moonshot project to scale machine learning in space. It plans to launch two prototype satellites by early 2027 to test its hardware in orbit. "Like any moonshot, it's going to require us to solve a lot of complex engineering challenges," [6]Pichai posted on social media. Nvidia, too, has announced a partnership with startup Starcloud to work on space-based data centers. Not to be outdone, Elon Musk has been painting his own updated vision for the heavens... in recent weeks he has been talking more about how he can use his spaceships to deploy new versions of his solar-powered Starlink satellites equipped with high-speed lasers to build out in-space data centers.
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> On Friday, Musk further reiterated how those AI satellites would be able to generate 100 gigawatts of annual solar power — or, what he said, would be roughly a quarter of what the U.S. consumes on average in a year. "We have a plan mapped out to do it," he told investor Ron Baron during an event. "It gets crazy." Previously, he has suggested he was four to five years away from that ability. He's also touted even wilder ideas, saying on X that 100 terawatts a year "is possible from a lunar base producing solar-powered AI satellites locally and accelerating them to escape velocity with a mass driver." Simply put, he's suggesting a moon base will crank out satellites and throw them into orbit with a catapult. And those satellites' solar panels would generate 100,000 gigawatts a year. "I think we'll see intelligence continue to scale all the way up to where...most of the power of the sun is harnessed for compute," Musk told a tech conference in September.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/now-tech-moguls-want-to-build-data-centers-in-outer-space/ar-AA1QwZEM
[2] https://x.com/DrPhiltill/status/1987478347480273407?s=20
[3] https://x.com/DrPhiltill/status/1985380152545837241?s=20
[4] https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/10/03/1426244/jeff-bezos-predicts-gigawatt-data-centers-in-space-within-two-decades
[5] https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/11/04/2236207/googles-next-moonshot-is-putting-tpus-in-space-with-project-suncatcher
[6] https://x.com/sundarpichai/status/1985754323813605423?s=20
Cooling? (Score:1)
I fail to see how cooling will work.
Cyrille
Re: (Score:2)
Around 1995-1997, I worked at a nuclear engineering consulting company where there was a thermo engineer VP who was also a professor of thermodynamics in microgravity research. Several times, he opined heat pipes would be amazing for cooling the new generation of very hot PC CPUs in desktops and laptops because these were what were used in satellites to remove heat from systems that needed to radiate heat away from point heat sources to cold sources elsewhere. And, sure enough, not a year later did Zalman h
and the data bill for an link with no cap and no s (Score:2)
and the data bill for an link with no cap and no shaping will eat up what they save.
... generate 100,000 gigawatts a year. (Score:2)
Sounds like Musk doesn't know the difference between a Watt and a Watt-hour.
Re: ... generate 100,000 gigawatts a year. (Score:1)
Hmm, Elon is trying to keep the hype going. That is how he drives the Tesla stock price up and down and making tons of money on the swings.
Re: (Score:2)
How does Elon make money on the swings?
Re: ... generate 100,000 gigawatts a year. (Score:1)
Same as everyone else. Sell when the hype drives the price high.
Cooling is easier in a vaccum?? (Score:4, Informative)
" Demands for cooling could also be cut because of the vacuum of space."
How does that work? Vaccum makes cooling harder, not easier, doesn't it?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, when I hit that sentence my brain went "how's that again?"
I think they've seen too many sci-fi TV shows where someone gets sucked out an airlock and is instantly frozen solid.
Re: (Score:1)
Total vacuum makes convective and conductive heat transfer impossible. But it makes radiative easier. And when the background is -100 C (in shadow), radiative becomes highly effective.
Re: Cooling is easier in a vaccum?? (Score:1)
Perhaps they get their info from those Hollywood movie films, where space pirates freeze solid when they walk the space plank.
Either that, or these turbonerds have just never used a vacuum flask to keep their hot drinks hot.
Just let them build them on earth. (Score:2)
The only reason anyone is talking about this is we’ve made it too hard to build new power generating capacity on earth.
Re: (Score:2)
Whether any are realistic or not, none of the proposed options from these guys are short term fixes. Certainly not this one. They're dressing up alternatives to quick and easy renewables so as to appease Trump's aversion to renewables.
human migration beyond our home world (Score:2)
while there are no planets that can sustain life in our solar system and we have no practical way put humans on a flight to another solar system and we don't have knowledge about habitable planets in other solar systems. Can we please put all the efforts we can muster up to stop destroying and polluting our own planet?
Re: (Score:2)
Speaking of pollution, sending up zllions of satellites with maybe several missions for one is sure to pollute the Earth's atmosphere. The scurvy little bastards that will do it to us won't care as long as it turn them into billionaires.
Can we send them with it? (Score:2)
And maybe make sure those things are in a close solar orbit to make sure they stay warm. I hear space is really cold.
Cooling DCs in space is near impossible (Score:2)
It might be freezing cold in space, the lack of a medium to transport heat spoils all these pipe dreams.
Re: (Score:1)
It's actually easier since it doesn't need a single moving part - heat pipes to quickly transfer to radiators where, when in shade, it radiates really well.
Production Tasks (Score:2)
Capacity Upgrades
Repair down servers
push the damm button
find the failing cable
replace the storage device
backup backup and send backup offsite
replace entire server rack with new new new servers
train new people and replace exiting people
free power may not make enough of a difference
DCs in space is just fucking delusional (Score:5, Interesting)
Servers without racks and cases are still heavy; even cutting to $500/kg, that's still $500k/mt just for the initial orbit without maintenance burns. Cosmic ray shielding is really fucking heavy. And then it must also haul up solar panels good only for ~50% duty cycle, which is even heavier. What goes up, must come down.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah it seems to me the choice is either
1) a stable orbit with a 50% duty cycle, which means more collectors AND heavy batteries. Expensive.
2) Parking it in something like a lagrange point. Extremely stable forever-orbit, but extremely expensive per kg to get it to that place. And space junk from abandoned shit will never go away
3) geostationary orbits that require a tonne of fuel for constant adjustment burns.
None of this of course factors iin cosmic ray shielding and the enormous amount of infrastructure
Re: (Score:2)
Yup. I thought about alternatives to LEO: MEO, GEO, VLEO, GSO, SSO but realized the economics for each case is even worse.
In the meantime, gigaDCs are invading unincorporated and small towns driving up the local cost of water and electricity while adding to traffic and noise pollution to mine BTC or fulfill Zuck's and Sama's fanciful mirage of stonks going up forever by virtue of "if you build it, they will come". It's billionaires and corrupt politicians having Great Gatsby parties and sticking random peo
Re: (Score:1)
Viability is questionable regardless, but the $500/kg assumption may be overly pessimistic. The article assumes a time frame of at least a few years from now. SpaceX Starship future cost estimates predict as low as $10/kg to LEO and $50/kg to GEO by then - assuming high reusability is achieved (100 launches per ship).
Re: (Score:2)
Are those costs based on the 35t Starship payload SpaceX has sort-of flown (but not yet truly demonstrated), or the theoretical 100t payload Musk wants?
Re: (Score:2)
When you say 50% duty ... Is that an engineering factor or are you referring to orbiting into Earth's shadow? The latter won't happen because a polar orbit can easily avoid going into Earth's shadow.
BTW: I agree with the insanity of AI spending in general. The big deployments are just doing search engine function.
Re: (Score:2)
There is an opportunity, for a short blackout of a few seconds, a couple of times a months - When crossing behind the Moon's shadow as the Moon orbits on the Sun side of Earth.
So there will need to be some full-load battery capacity.