Suns energy at ISS is about 1.4KW/m2 Solar panels about 35% efficient but let’s say 50% for fun
700w/m2, or about one H100 worth per sq metre (hey, I could run my own H100 off a roof top panel !!)
We want a small 70MW data centre - which is 100,000 times the size so 100,000 m2 or an array 316mx316m or 15 football pitches
Then as it’s energy in and energy out you need radiators on dark side of same size
The ISS is ~ 2000m2, so that’s fifty ISSes
I mean it’s physically possible. But the engineering, the space launch costs they are staggering. And the upside is … Im not sure
All the win seems to be is free sun energy, but a data centre in Texas or Nigeria just needs about twice the solar panels and some big ass batteries.
Im not costing that out but, honestly it seems like a marketing pitch or a really obscure need to put compute beyond the reach of governments.
"Just" is doing a lot of work there. SpaceX is planning to launch 100 GW of compute annually, that comes with ~ 2.5 square kilometers of radiator (assuming an optimistic 800K radiator temp and emissivity of 0.9, double sided)
Go for advanced carbon composites, you can do that with just 5,000 metrics tons or so of material. That's 34 starship launches just for the radiators. We haven't solved assembly, we haven't brought up power panels or core compute. Planned launch cadence that SpaceX hopes to reach end of this year: 12/year.
there is already a h100 in orbit
1GW of compute is a lot in 2026. comparing 100GW of annual compute to SpaceX 2026 goals does not make sense
if Starship launch cost predictions are accurate, data centers in space will happen within 10 years
1GW needs a pretty big area for radiation.
And in space your data centers is hard to defend against foreign actors
By that logic, climate change is also solved, just built a giant radiator.
This is emphatically not true at any scale in which this scheme makes sense. Be careful with including too many Musk boosters in your information diet.