Data Centers in Space are not crazy!

They are possible, but they would look nothing like the ones on earth. On earth, they are massive buildings with huge cooling infrastructure and massive power requirements.

Earth Data Centers have row upon row of racks with electronic equipment. In space it is possible for there to be a single rack per satellite. That single rack would require significantly less power and cooling than an earth data center. There are technical problems that would have to be solved, e.g. how to protect against radiation, but these problems are not unsolvable.

So theoretically you could have a “fleet” of these satellite “racks” interconnected with lasers. Starlink’s satellites are already connected this way.

Engineering all this would take a considerable amount of work, but it is possible.

The question then becomes, is all the engineering work and capital expenditure worth it? It might be. Vast sums are already being spent. What may make the business case for space data centers is the lack of support for earth AI data centers among the public. Polls show they are unpopular among both many Democrats and Republicans.

So there are a lot of if’s, but I originally thought the entire idea of data centers in space was crazy. It is not.