Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea
12 days ago
- #datacenters
- #AI
- #space-technology
- Datacenters in space are impractical due to power, thermal regulation, and radiation issues.
- Power in space is limited; solar arrays like the ISS's can only support a fraction of the GPUs needed for AI datacenters.
- Nuclear options like RTGs are insufficient, providing only 50W-150W, not enough for even one GPU.
- Thermal regulation in space is challenging due to the vacuum, requiring complex systems like the ISS's ATCS, which is impractical for large-scale datacenters.
- Radiation in space causes issues like single-event upsets and latch-ups, degrading chip performance over time, with no effective shielding solution.
- Space-based GPUs/TPUs would need radiation-hardened designs, drastically reducing performance compared to Earth-based counterparts.
- Communication with space datacenters is limited to about 1Gbps via radio, far below Earth-based rack interconnects of 100Gbps or more.
- Overall, space datacenters are extremely difficult, costly, and offer poor performance compared to Earth-based solutions.