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Comment by xnx

9 months ago

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.

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xnx

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VladVladikoff  9 months ago

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.

transpute  9 months ago

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

  • semi-extrinsic  9 months ago

    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.

    • xnx  9 months ago

      > 60 000 liters of water per second

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

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