The plan as I understand it is to pack it tightly with TPUs with liquid cooling out to radiators and flying a tight cluster of these next to each other using high bandwidth laser links. That lets you balance the amount of thermal radiation you need to emit vs the amount of TPUs in a single satellite. Thus it’s not a DC in a single satellite but more like a rack and then a bundle of racks flying beside each other.
replyOr you know, just have tpus with liquid cooling in huge racks, with optical cables or whatever. We can put a shitton of them into a warehouse sized space, and we have basically infinite energy to power and cool it, with physical connection to the internet for ultra fast speeds!
reply(Sorry, the snark is not directed at you)
The problem is that building the physical DCs is a cost problem not just in terms of energy availability (it’s not infinite) but also politics and legal regulations. Ignoring that is why it makes the space idea seem silly but it’s a real one
reply> Silliness aside, has anyone come up with a cooling system that would work well for a friggin data center in space? Or is it still all just a wishful thinking game, ignoring physics
replyThat cooling is already perfectly viable.
However at the temperatures chips operate at, because stuff on the ground is getting convective cooling as well as radiative, a radiator designed for LEO will reject slightly more heat on the ground than it would in orbit.
It is absolutely a wishful thinking game, ignoring physics. It's a bet made by investors who don't know or care about the science, and are looking for a modal outcome of a failed company purchased by SpaceX or by an even dumber company looking to compete with SpaceX.
replyI recommend reading up on the results of Google’s project suncatcher. IMHO the results have provided a roadmap to space DCs with the only blocker being launch cost which are targeted to become economically viable in 2030s; sooner for spacex because they can lower their margins to zero or even negative for the launch itself.
replyWhenever I asked someone to dig down into "against the laws of physics" arguments, they turned out to instead rest on a pile of tacit and pessimistic technological assumptions.
replyPerhaps you could explain in detail why you think the laws of physics have to be violated for space data centers to work.
it's the equivalent of PMs asking "can we just make our own llm to save costs"
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