I'm with Mark on this being stupid because (a) launch costs (coming down fast but still ridiculously high), (b) energy (PV cells, yes, but you need to put them in orbit first), and (c) waste heat, which is THE killer problem for data centres on Earth, where we have these heat sinks called "rivers" and "the atmosphere". Vacuum's a thermal insulator!
(No need to get into the weeds and talk about latency. Whole idea's stupid.)
https://eigenmagic.net/@NewtonMark/115332884441287733
Just for solar power?
I was under the impression that the standard stupid reason for tech bros wanting orbital data servers was for orbital data havens, orbital financial centers, or other ridiculous tax-dodging schemes.
@nyrath @cstross On another note, while I don't think we're quite to the point of having to consider literal heat emissions as a prime contributor to global warming, ridiculously inefficiently cooled space data centers do at least have the advantage that people bitching mindlessly about how AI is going to drink the Great Lakes dry have to find some other gross misunderstanding to whinge about.
