> FWIW, given how many places in the U.S. are passing datacenter bans

If you have the technical chops to set up a data center in space — with no connections to the electrical grid or municipal water, you can use your technology to build your data center with the same specs right here on earth in 90% of places that you think are issuing "bans". You'll also get much better cooling for free via convection.

A remote town with a population of 43 will be happy for a data center to employ 2 locals, but data center operators aren't doing that today because they want tax breaks tiny towns can't give, infrastructure tiny towns don't have, nevermind a well-armed police force to deter would-be GPU thieves. Space is a red herring.

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robotresearcher 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If all the energy for a space appliance comes from the sun, in steady state they only have to radiate away the same amount that hits them. All long-lived spacecraft manage it.

Whether they can be worth the money it cost to put them in orbit is another story.

	▲	overfeed 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> All long-lived spacecraft manage it. Apples to oranges, long-luver satellites have modest power needs. Doing a back-of-the napkin math on required size of solar array and radiative elements for a single-rack's worth of energy is a sobering exercise for those who are a overly exuberant on the topic. The all-in power estimate for a single GB300 chip is 2.1kW

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bryan_w an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It's not a technical problem. It's a people problem. Every data center project over the last year has experienced some form of pushback no matter where they're built

	▲	overfeed 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		By definition, a data center in space is remote, self-reliant on electrical power and doesn't use potable water. These characteristics require technical solution to be practical, and once one has cracked those challenges, they have disarmed all the push-back arguments people have raised against data centers. It's telling that the data centers want to build-out near population centers, i.e. where someone else has paid for fiber, grid and water infrastructure; it's a good old fashioned raid of the commons. This is why no-one is pushing for building data centers in locales with 0.2 people/sq mile.