But since building a datacenter almost anywhere on the planet is more convenient than outer space, surely you can find some suitable location/government. Or put it on a boat, which is still 100 times more sensible than outer space.

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JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago | parent [-]

> since building a datacenter almost anywhere on the planet is more convenient than outer space, surely you can find some suitable location/government

More convenient. But I'm balancing the cost equation. There are regimes where this balances. I don't think we're there yet. But it's irrational to reject it completely.

> Or put it on a boat, which is still 100 times more sensible than outer space

More corrosion. And still, interconnects.

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GCUMstlyHarmls 12 hours ago | parent [-]

> More corrosion

Surely given starlinks 5ish year deorbit plan, you could design a platform to hold up for that long... And instead of burning the whole thing up you could just refurbish it when you swap out the actual rack contents, considering that those probably have an even shorter edge lifespan.

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m4rtink 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Starlinks are built to safely burn up on re-entry. A big reusable platform will have to work quite differently to never uncontrollably re-enter, or it might kill someone by high velocity debris on impact.

This adds weight and complexity and likely also forces a much higher orbit.

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necovek 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Hopefully a sea platform does not end up flying into space all of its own, only to crash and burn back down.

Maybe the AI workloads running on it achieve escape velocity? ;)

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vlovich123 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I can’t wait for all the heavy metals that are put into GPUs and other electronics showering down on us constantly. Wonder why the billionaires have their bunkers.

	▲	reverius42 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, "burn up safely on reentry". 100 years later: "why does everything taste like cadmium?"