zlacker

>>g-mork+(OP)
> The basic math is that launching a million tons per year of satellites generating 100 kW of compute power per ton would add 100 gigawatts of AI compute capacity annually, with no ongoing operational or maintenance needs. Ultimately, there is a path to launching 1 TW/year from Earth.

> My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space.

This is so obviously false. For one thing, in what fantasy world would the ongoing operational and maintenance needs be 0?

>>rybosw+u5
> in what fantasy world

It is already more expensive to performance maintenance on SOCs than it is to replace them. Remember, these machines are not for serving a database, there are practically no storage needs (and storage is the component that fails most often.)

Given that, the main challenge is cooling, I assume that will be figured out before yeeting 100 billion $ of computers into space. Plenty of smart people work at these companies.

>>fooker+Zh
Do smart people work at Boring Company? Do smart people work on FSD at Tesla? What about the HyperLoop? It is possible for smart people to make technical achievements without the overall project being particularly successful.

>>bobthe+gx
You're right.

I meant it specifically for figuring out cooling computers in space.

I am pretty sure this is going to be a solvable problem if this is the bottleneck to achieve data centers in space, given that newer chips are much more tolerant to high temperatures.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2026/01/07/new-ai-chips-wi...