Comment by AlotOfReading
8 hours ago
Even assuming "that's it", why not just install it in e.g. Morocco instead? It's not like space is any easier to access than the Sahara, and saving a few dozen ms of network latency isn't particularly valuable when your TTFT is measured in tenths of a second. Sure, sun synchronous orbits are a thing, but you also need more expensive panels and the comparative efficiency will decline over time vs land-based hardware as your chips fail (wasting that part of the resource budget) and the land hardware gets upgraded.
>why not just install it in e.g. Morocco instead
The number of political actors that can stop you from building in Morocco (or confiscate/damage your invested capital once you deploy it) are numerous. The number that can do so in space? Maybe a half dozen. We’re already seeing states and municipalities in the US moving to ban data centers and the energy infrastructure needed to power them. Building in space faces no such procedural roadblocks.
The economics still seem like an open question, but if the demand for compute is high enough, space based data centers might be the only option
Let's not forget that physics confiscates satellites pretty quickly too. I realize I didn't say it explicitly, but I was assuming that this hypothetical land-based hardware would have access to only the same resources available to the satellites, namely sunlight and a network connection. That makes it somewhat less politically charged than a DC tied into local infrastructure.
If AGI were to happen, or if AI became a trillions-of-dollars-generating industry, you wouldn't want to have your data-centers which might be the most valuable thing on Earth be located in a foreign country. All this investment in infrastructure is not purely based on where the industry is now, but predicated by where those who are bullish about it think it will be in 5-10 years.
How do you protect your datacenters in space from thrown stones?
You need permission to do that in Morocco
I think Elons version is totally crazy but the idea of edge computer (maybe for latency or something) on each satellite above your head could make sense. It could even integrate well with larger terrestrial datacenters (like your example of Morocco) depending on use case