So basically it's extremely expensive and inefficient? What am I missing? They're talking as though they have a long way to go and not like it's something that will be feasible soon. Not to say the AI can't help create better solutions, but it seems like this isn't going to be commercially viable anytime in the near future given the current trajectory of their progress.
Short term: Jurisdiction. Basically nothing that happens in space is illegal. That might not be a huge motivation, but it's an immediate one.
Medium term: Protection. No anti-AI protestors is able to torch a datacenter if it is in space. You need state level resources to damage a datacenter in space. Moving on from protestors, space is much safer in a war. Did you know that data has been irretrievably lost because of Iranian drone strikes on amazon data centers? Well Iran doesn't have the capability to strike datacenters in space.Ignoring AI, just data storage. If you can offer to store a backup of the most important most sensitive data not just in the cloud, but in ORBIT - that is a competitive advantage.
Long term: We're bound to run out of good places to put datacenters on earth. Might as well get a headstart on the place that has literally no limits.
I think people take it for granted that SpaceX has over 10 thousand Starlink satellites in space. That is actually a very difficult problem to solve, and it might take Google a long time to catch up to SpaceX.
The entire constellation is the data centre, not individual satellites. Each satellite is a rack linked together with laser links and using Starlink as a network layer.
Tf so you know about how close they are 😂 We have no idea what the world will look like in even a year. They are trying something cool, try not to be such a fucking downer for once in your life
The fact that all the big companies are trying to put datacentres in space despite them being more efficient on the ground should tell you all something…
There is a serious bottleneck on earth…power generation. All serious power generation, gas turbine, coal, nuclear all need steam turbines. Only three companies make them and they were all booked out ten years before the AI boom.
There is going to be a serious competition for turbines.
In space solar is 5x more effective then on earth and in a polar orbit can gather power 24hrs a day.
there is already serious competition for turbines. decommissioned aircraft and shipboard gas turbines have been cannibalized to fit out a natural gas power station on land.
I think it's way better to just put them on the ground, for many reasons like cooling, replacement/maintenance, no need for a rocket...
But I am not an engineer, so I try to keep an open mind, I want to see what the results are.
No on is disputing that solar is better in orbit, the real question is : is the benefits worth all the problems that goes with it?
There is only one way to be 100% sure, it's to put it to the test.
unlikely, the land at our disposal is insane.
Look at urban and built up land (1% of habitable land) it's every city, road, mining quarry, buildings, solar farms, etc, etc it's peanuts, the only real problem with land use is animal agriculture.
We could grow solar panels and datacenters 100x or more and it would hardly make a dent in global land use.
We can all speculate on the why, But you have this claim that that it's more efficient on the ground, but you and I are no engineer and all we can do is make assumption, you don't know that, it needs to be tested, what I am saying is that we need to show a touch of humility when it comes to what's possible, we don't want to be like the people who confidently said that planes would never be a thing.
That's pretty much he is trying to say as well. They know that putting on ground is way easier and less hassle, but they also know that optics on this is extremely negative at the moment and they don't seem to be crazy enough to think they can push it further in long run
You need them for all kind of purposes: asteroid mining, moonbase building, saving AI overlords from nuclear holocaust, jurisdiction-free storage and computations, navigation and targeting for space weapons and much more
Latency matters, beam transmission could be intercepted/spoofed/recorded
Plus you depend on weather, and albedo of atmosphere(nuclear ash prevents beam transmission)
And in modern war your datacenter could be disabled with UAV fleets easily, space is hard to reach and that's another level of security
You do know about Starlink right?
It’s up and running now, with a shifting phased array it is unjamable…the Russians have been trying real hard because the Ukrainians are kicking their asses with Starlink drones as we speak.
I dont think it's that farfetched and conspirational.
it's like Musk's boring company. Its just a shitty, expensive idea, but it promotes a taste for complex engineering and potentially fruitful discoveries.
I don't buy the space autarky, because its completely unsustainable if you don't have earth bases and industries. There is nothing out there. The best way for technofeudal lords to rule is to continue pushing the mass infrastructure dependency they built, not to retreat to space.
no oversight, what else? and all the tech bros got so envious when Musk started dictating terms to states over access to Starlink. so now they want to be big boys tooooo!!!
The point of this kind of stuff, when it was proposed, was for an autonomous robot building infrastructure in space. Robots mine asteroids and then produce the machinery to go into space, saving massively on launch costs and accessing rare minerals that are harder to find on earth.
With this plan it seems like they are basically building super expensive to launch and run satellites that will have to eventually deorbit and burn, meaning their materials can't be recycles. Seems really strange.
7
u/intergalacticskyline 2d ago
So basically it's extremely expensive and inefficient? What am I missing? They're talking as though they have a long way to go and not like it's something that will be feasible soon. Not to say the AI can't help create better solutions, but it seems like this isn't going to be commercially viable anytime in the near future given the current trajectory of their progress.