zlacker

>>mindra+(OP)
Google’s paper [1] does talk about radiation hardening and thermal management. Maybe their ideas are naive and it’s a bad paper? I’m not an expert so I couldn’t tell from a brief skim.

It does sound to me like other concepts that Google has explored and shelved, like building data centers out of shipping container sized units and building data centers underwater.

[1] https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/suncatcher_paper.p...

>>skybri+Ik
Pedantically, Microsoft has actually submerged datacenters (UDC). Google's only tried pumping seawater for cooling.

>>fragme+7l
Apparently Microsoft tried it and it worked, but they shelved it?

https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/servers/microsoft-shel...

>>skybri+zp
It didn't work, it was an utterly terrible idea and they are almost certainly lying about the sentiment that it "worked". No ability to perform maintenance is a complete nonstarter. Communications and power is a nightmare to get right. The thermal management story sucks - just because you have metal touching water doesn't mean you have effective radiation of heat. Actually scaling it up is nearly impossible because you need thicker and more expensive vessels the bigger it gets. The problems go on and on.

>>creato+021
Look at that, there are all exactly the same problems as space data centers! Although I’m surprised by cooling underwater being hard.