zlacker

Because despite being more reliable and energy efficient the other costs associated with it were higher. It is one thing to dunk 14.3m L x 12.7m D in the ocean for a 240 kW setup in the ocean. It is another to scale that up to a "full scale" data center that is about 200x larger that has additional electrical supply challenges.

Let's say that pod needs to be serviced once every two years. That means having a ship that services one pod every 3 days when scaled up.

From the standpoint of a single pod data center and "does this work?" - the answer is "yes, it works better than we thought it would." From the standpoint of "can we scale this to a full data center?" - the answer is "we'd need a ship servicing a twice a week, with the logistics that entails for the ship (and backup ship)." That second part becomes less practical compared to building a data center on terra firma where it's much easier to walk into a building to service it and hook up the power.

>>shagie+(OP)
yep, just found Microsoft admitting precisely that in 2024: https://www.itpro.com/infrastructure/data-centres/microsoft-...

Cooling was great! Everything else sucked.

DCs in space will have all the stuff that sucked, but cooling will suck too.