A sci-fi idea is gaining supporters, from billionaires to city councils. Whether it’s feasible is another matter.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20250920120913/https://www.wired.com/story/data-centers-gobble-earths-resources-what-if-we-took-them-to-space-instead/
I don’t really see why you would want this
Gods, why? Vacuum is the ultimate thermal insulator, so getting rid of waste heat is troublesome, launching large amounts of hardware into orbit isn’t exactly cheap, electronics will need additional EM / particle shielding and maintenance when something inevitably breaks or wears out might be a bit harder than usual.
shhhhhhshshsh sh sh. Let them. Let them take their stupid fucking infrastructure disasters up into stupid space. this seems like a profitable outcome for everyone 👀 there are lots of reasons to do it
Look, I’m all for rich leeches having less money, but I’d prefer it if we didn’t let them piss precious resources away on stupid shit when there’s real problems to be solved. How about just seizing some of their obscene wealth and build some solar farms, fund fusion research or build cheap housing for the homeless or something?
that’s ideal. I guess I’m losing the faith sometimes that’s even on the table
Which is unfortunately completely understandable. Sometimes I think Americans (and a few other notable polities) forget who owns their damn country. Despite what the bits stored on the SSD’s of their Swiss banks might otherwise indicate, it’s not the small handful of billionaires. It’s not the politicians either. It’s the people actually paying their taxes rather than dodging them.
I firmly believe that when a significant proportion of 340 million individuals collectively decide something has to be done, then that thing will get done, one way or the other. Regrettably, the members of the American Aristocracy are really good at dividing and conquering the hoi polloi.
That is dumb, space is extremely expensive to get to, power is fairly limited, cooling is a nightmare, and micro meteorite impacts can not only dammage the data center, but possibly initiate Kessler syndrome.
Now a few years ago I read an old article about Microsoft experimenting with submerged data centers which is a way better idea, it is relatively cheap to get to, power is easy to deal with, cooling is trivial, and you don’t need to worry about micro meteorites or Kessler syndrome.
You also need to factor in radiation, connectivity and serviceability
Good luck keeping your data intact and actually usable.
Sam Altman
Of-fucking-course.
How the fuck do these dim bulbs ever get this rich in the first place?
big tech proving yet again that it’s full of people who are breathtakingly stupid outside their narrow area of expertise
Replace big tech with local inventor and nothing changes
