Comment by amluto
10 hours ago
Here's the thing. Land is cheap in many parts of the world. Solar panels work okay on the ground (not as well as in space). GPUs work better on the ground (MUCH easier to cool). Connectivity is cheaper on the ground (sure, Starlink is amazing, but it doesn't hold a candle to fiber). Maintenance is possible on the ground. Reuse of old equipment is possible on the ground. Batteries are heavy, and they smooth out solar power pretty well on the ground. Oh, and natural gas, which xAI/SpaceX uses in their big datacenters, is cheap on the ground.
So, given that you're bought the GPUs, you could launch them into space, but you have the alternative option of ... not launching them into space.
But now there's massive opposition to building on land.
If you just build in space no one will be able to hold up those permits.
For what it's worth I don't disagree with you.
This depends on ridiculously low costs to orbit. But there truly is unlimited power up there from the sun.
This is exactly why Starlink is successful. If we had decent regulations, and had actual good internet on the ground, why would we bother going to outer space? The truth is that it's cheaper to build an ISP in space to work around the corruption that has kept all these monopolies in power.
I'm under the assumption that Starlink will never provide more than one percent of the mobile bandwidth in a developed country. Because they can't match dense antenna webs in cities. Am I wrong?