It’s less about putting compute in space as occupying that space before anyone else does. For any reason: spying, space warfare, network and communication.

First mover advantage, and all.

Bingo. I elaborated on this idea more in my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46884246

People are acting like a space data centre would be running a traditional workload. No, it's probably running a military one, some sort of AI powered modern version of Dead Hand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand). Autonomous warfare could get real dark, real fast.