Can AI data centers be moved to outer space?

here e The emissivity of an object – how effective it is as a radiator (0 e < 1), p is the Stefan Boltzmann constant, A is the surface area, and T It is the temperature (in Kelvin). And since our temperature is up to the fourth power, you can see that the hottest things radiate a lot More power from cooler stuff.

Well, say you want to play Red dead redemption In space. Your computer will get hot, perhaps 200 degrees F (366 Kelvin). To simplify it, let’s assume that this is a cube-shaped computer with a total area of ​​1 square meter, which is a perfect radiator (ε = 1). The power of thermal radiation will then be about 1000 watts. Of course your computer is no Perfect radiator, but it looks like you’ll be fine. As long as the output (1000W) is greater than the input (300W), it will cool down.

Now let’s say you want to run some modest AI stuff. This is a bigger task, so let’s expand our cube computer with edges twice as long as it was before. This would make the volume eight times larger (2³), so we can have eight times as many processors, and need eight times the power input – 2400 watts. However, the surface area is only four times that (2²) is larger, so the radiant power will be about 4000 watts. You still have more output than input, but the gap is narrowing.

Size matters

You can see where this is going. If you keep expanding it, the volume will grow faster than the surface area. So, the larger your satellite computer is, the more difficult it will be to cool it. If you imagine a Walmart-sized structure orbiting the Earth, like data centers on Earth, that’s not going to happen. It will melt.

Of course, you can add external radiation panels. The International Space Station has these. How big should they be? Well, let’s say your data center operates at 1 MW. (AI data centers on Earth use between 100 and 1,000 megawatts.) Then you will need a radiation area of ​​at least 980 square metres. This is getting out of control.

Oh, and these radiators aren’t like solar panels, connected by wire. They need systems to deliver heat away from the processors and onto the boards. The International Space Station pumps ammonia through a network of pipes for this purpose. This means more material, making it much more expensive to lift into orbit.

So let’s evaluate it. Even though we made this with positive assumptions, it doesn’t look very good. We don’t even take into account the fact that solar radiation will also heat the computer, which will require more cooling. Or intense solar radiation could potentially damage electronic devices over time. How do you make repairs?

However, one thing is clear: Since cooling is inefficient in space, your “data center” should be a swarm of small satellites with better area-to-volume ratios, not a few large satellites. This is what most proponents, such as the Google Suncatcher project, are now proposing. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already requested permission from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch 1 million small artificial intelligence satellites into orbit.

Hmm. Low Earth orbit is already crowded with 10,000 active satellites and about 10,000 metric tons of space junk. The risk of collisions, and perhaps even disastrous Keesler Falls, is already real. And we will add a hundred times the number of satellites? All I can say is: “See below.”