What a stupid fucking idea

It's really difficult to cool things in space, and it's really difficult to power stationary things in space. It's also really expensive to put things in space so size/weight is a problem.

So if it's not cheaper/better for cooling, and it's not cheaper/better for power, and it's not cheaper/better for rack space.. why is there a focus on shipping compute to space?

The point I keep coming back to is that it's really hard for the public to protest/damage/destroy data centres in space.

I wonder how they're going to cool it?

Edit: Oh. So they're just... not doing that. Okay. Hmm.

In the meantime, the company is taking baby steps. For now, the company is limited to just 15 minutes of operation in space before the chips have to be shut off to cool back down.

dogshit ass timeline where billionaire sociopaths keep doing the wrong things got me truly irritated since 2020

That's just what we need, a single individual server in space with incredibly long latency times. Really useful technology. This brilliant idea is brought to you by the same people that came up with the totally workable idea of mirrors in space to charge for sunlight.

Ignoring the hundred reasons this is dumb, I would just love to know the launch cost per expected compute.

Best quote from article is at the very end:

For now, the company is limited to just 15 minutes of operation in space before the chips have to be shut off to cool back down.

Brilliant. They should invest every penny into this. If they got this far without even referencing a 6th grade science book, they deserve to go under.

the prototype satellite is part of the tech giant’s Project Suncatcher. As its name suggests, the goal is to take advantage of unfiltered sunlight around the clock to power AI data centers in our planet’s orbit — instead of crushing the electrical grid, spewing copious amounts of pollution, and draining fresh water supplies back on the ground.

They know they could use solar on the ground too right? They are making it seem like they care about the environment, but if there was a way to suck hydrocarbon power from the surface they would 100% do it

Home lab in space usable for 15 mins.

Nice! Oh, "Data Center"... Misread it as "CEO".

"fridge-sized data center" REALLY cracks me up. Like, how much processing power can you fit in there, considering all the space you need for cooling. And then I'm imagining some bloke on the ISS looking outside and just seeing a fridge float there hehe.

What I don't like is thinking further about this. If this is how they want to roll out a bit of processing power in space, I can totally imagine them just yeeting like 5000 fridges into LEO, polluting it even more :(

Also, how'd it get so far? None of the engineers at Google screaming about how this is a really REALLY bad idea? Do they think that these datacenters are gonna be more acceptable by the public than the ones on Earth and accept the lower efficiency for better PR? I mean, that would make sense, if Google would care about looks, which I don't think they do.

My dick pics gonna be an astronaut like Katy Perry.

where is the fiduciary duty to shareholders in burning warehouses full of cash on stupid bullshit like this?

i guess the shareholders are dipshits too

Just waiting for them to realize it's more cost-effective to just keep destroying the environment.

Could Sergey be on it?

It's so stupid. Wouldn't doing the same thing but on the bottom of the sea be less expensive, more realistic and with less of an environmental impact? You could cool the machines easier, get power from the water movement and there is plenty of space on the bottom.

Building a relatively puny and ineffective data center because they're idiots? perhaps. Doing it knowing it'll provide overwhelming evidence that the idea is really dumb and making some well timed shorts against a certain launch company with an inflated value that's been touting this very concept, maybe? (idk what I'm really talking about but it's what comes to mind.)

air jerk

F.U.C.K. SCROOGLE! I hope they lose their asses on this!

We need an acronym, like "Fine" (freaked out, insecure, neurotic, emotional) from Italian Job.

F.U.C.K. = Fucking Useless Crooked Killjoy

More space junk!