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
You operate them like Microsoft's submerged data center project: you don't do maintenance, whatever fails fails. You start with enough redundancy in critical components like power and networking and accept that compute resources will slowly decrease as nodes fail

No operational needs is obviously ... simplified. You still need to manage downlink capacity, station keeping, collision avoidance, etc. But for a large constellation the per-satellite cost of that would be pretty small.

>>wongar+z8
Being under the ocean in a metal box you don't get too many micro-meteors or cosmic rays though.

>>fred_i+A9
Just like you don’t get much water in space.

>>gehsty+ka
My understanding was that access to very large body of cold water was a core feature for the project. The water was to be used for cooling relatively efficiently or cheaply.

>>manque+3n
My point was that they are both quite hostile environments for different reasons. In the same way space has abundant power supply, subsea has an abundant heat sink.