Comment by vessenes
10 hours ago
Elon makes a relatively good case in the Dwarkesh podcast. I recall it like this:
1) Energy infra is going to be seriously limited on the production side well, well below demand
2) energy engineering solar for space requires less materials than for gravity-based solar (!)
3) you cut out distribution network needs when you just launch stuff all per-pod in space
4) SpaceX thinks it can create a scalable vertically integrated production facility to turn raw materials into space datacenter pods, with the exception of chips.
As a business bet, this is predicated on 10,000x inference demand growth - if we have that, and SpaceX can get the integrated production rolling, and get Starship launching, then these will be actively utilized at scale.
Whether you are bullish on the whole plan should, I think come down to your take on those priors: 10kx growth, ability to manage supply chain and production, Starship outlook, and silicon access.
I'm not bearish on this after listening to the podcast; it has a very Elon-like returns distribution - if they're wrong on a lot of this, they'll probably have some moderately price-competitive datacenter facilities in space and a lot of built organizational knowhow while Brooklyn journalists dunk on them for spending all that effort to just replicate what we have on Earth. If they're right about most of this, they'll have an unreplicable head start, both due to years of experience, and due to the cheap launch they gambled on ten years ago, they'll have a nearly insurmountable moat.
Everything relating to a datacentre that you can do in space you can do more easily on earth, regardless of 10,000x inference growth or supply chain or production or starship or silicon. I just don't think you can be cost competitive with earth bound data centres if 'protected from the poors' isn't a selling point.
By the way, 10,000x inference growth would look like what happened with cryptocurrency mining - after a couple of years, you'd be needing to upgrade all your machines with ASICs and the market would be flooded with very cheap graphics cards. I doubt that upgrading space data centres would be fun.
Zoning is one area that’s better in space. And power density for solar is another.
I don’t get your mining analogy though - a non upgradable data center pod is either going to pay off its capital costs or it won’t. Once it has, any revenue is close to 100% profit. 10k demand increase is the opposite of mining dynamics: there you get a 10k supply increase that the price has to support, in combination with more efficient silicon. Here the demand drives revenue and earnings.
If there’s some crazy inflection point in chips then you’ll still have all the power infra in space - you can just like cut the old pod and hook up a new one: or more likely manufacturing economies of scale mean you probably just keep sending up new systems and put the old ones on work loads they can manage at market prices.
Zoning is one area that’s better in space.
Not really, though? The idea that Earth-based data centers need to be built in populated, developed areas is indeed dumb, yet it seems to be inexplicably baked into everyone's assumptions. In particular, the small discrete data centers that Musk wants to launch could go anywhere on Earth.
They could be powered by local PV arrays and batteries, they can be cooled by smaller radiators than they would need to use in space, and they could be networked via Starlink or something very much like it, just as they would need to be networked in space. There's nothing special about space, it just costs more to get there.
If he wants them to be out of reach of governments, why not put them on container ships in international waters? There are thousands at sea at any given time, and I'm sure their operators would be happy to rent them out.
Hell, put them on dirigibles that just drift around in international airspace for months at a time. Anywhere but space.
And power density for solar is another.
Does power density matter in terrestrial solar applications? If so, why? These things can and should be deployed in oceans, deserts, and trackless wastelands. Who cares how big the solar panels are?
>Elon makes a relatively good case in the Dwarkesh podcast.
Are we still going to pretend that the man who has gotten every single prediction wrong so far knows what he is talking about?
How is cooling though?
Yeah I wonder the same thing - I keep getting told heat management in space is hard, but nobody discusses this inre the data centers. My understanding is one cooling mechanism is to just shoot lasers out into space (is this sci fi?) - I guess in that case you could just send energy back to your solar rigs, depending on wavelengths. TLDR: no idea
The whole thing is pie in the sky same as landing people on Mars. It's cool but if you look into deeper it doesn't make much sense and it's extremely challenging and on top of it all expensive as hell.
Every one of those points is false or an outright lie, though.
You forgot 5: SpaceX has a monopoly on deploying satellites to LEO, with practically unlimited room for growth, and far less red tape and obstacles than anywhere on Earth. Whatever R&D and operational costs this insane engineering feat might have are offset by their market advantage, and Musk's Elizabeth Holmes-ian capability to fund his projects, in addition to relying on his own personal wealth and all of his other companies combined.
The fact that this lunatic is polluting humanity's view into the universe mainly for enriching himself and his shareholders, and that everyone is playing along with this, is sickening.