zlacker

Can this possibly make financial sense even if launch costs were zero?

One NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD consumes 10 kW which would be ~500 square feet of solar panels and ~100 square feet of radiator area.

>>xnx+(OP)
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/th...

> Their design calls for a cluster of shipping container-style boxes packed with high-speed AI chips. These would be anchored at the centre of a 16 sq km array of solar panels generating up to five gigawatts of power — about 25 per cent more than Drax, Britain’s biggest power station. The mammoth structure would circle the Earth in “sun synchronous” orbit so that it is never in shade

>>xnx+(OP)
Even if they somehow figure out all these problems. how do you manage a space based data centre? do you have rotating staff living there? or are they just praying that nothing ever goes wrong??? Isn't radiation a massive problem in space? i would expect consumer grade hardware to be constantly flipping bits accidentally that shouldn't have flipped.

>>transp+a3
A continuous five gigawatts of power would be seriously impressive. I think that's about $12 million/day (terrestrial prices).

This plan seems about as realistic as Bluthton though. https://www.reddit.com/r/arresteddevelopment/comments/1gtyvv...

>>transp+a3
Their whitepaper clearly demonstrates a profound lack of knowledge of thermal engineering. E.g. heat pumps are described as magical things.

They are literally planning to feed the radiators using a coolant like water and sensible heat at 35 degC to 5 degC. At 5 GW, you then need to be pumping 60 000 liters of water per second.

That's like a tenth of the Sacramento river, going through a 16 sq km array in space and hoping that nothing leaks.

>>semi-e+0a
> 60 000 liters of water per second

Then they just need to worry about the extra friction heat generated by moving that much liquid.

>>xnx+Lf
And what happens if there’s a power outage. Frozen pipes aren’t all that fun.