[JumpCrisscross]

> Everything about operating a datacenter in space is more difficult than it is to operate one on earth

Minus one big one: permitting. Every datacentre I know going up right now is spending 90% of their bullshit budget on battlig state and local governments.

[dantillberg]

But since building a datacenter almost anywhere on the planet is more convenient than outer space, surely you can find some suitable location/government. Or put it on a boat, which is still 100 times more sensible than outer space.

[JumpCrisscross]

> since building a datacenter almost anywhere on the planet is more convenient than outer space, surely you can find some suitable location/government

More convenient. But I'm balancing the cost equation. There are regimes where this balances. I don't think we're there yet. But it's irrational to reject it completely.

> Or put it on a boat, which is still 100 times more sensible than outer space

More corrosion. And still, interconnects.

[GCUMstlyHarmls]

> More corrosion

Surely given starlinks 5ish year deorbit plan, you could design a platform to hold up for that long... And instead of burning the whole thing up you could just refurbish it when you swap out the actual rack contents, considering that those probably have an even shorter edge lifespan.

[m4rtink]

Starlinks are built to safely burn up on re-entry. A big reusable platform will have to work quite differently to never uncontrollably re-enter, or it might kill someone by high velocity debris on impact.

This adds weight and complexity and likely also forces a much higher orbit.

[necovek]

Hopefully a sea platform does not end up flying into space all of its own, only to crash and burn back down.

Maybe the AI workloads running on it achieve escape velocity? ;)

[vlovich123]

I can’t wait for all the heavy metals that are put into GPUs and other electronics showering down on us constantly. Wonder why the billionaires have their bunkers.

[reverius42]

Yeah, "burn up safely on reentry".

100 years later: "why does everything taste like cadmium?"

[m4rtink]

If you think there is no papework necessary for launching satellites, you are very very wrong.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If you think there is no papework necessary for launching satellites, you are very very wrong

I would be. And granted, I know a lot more about launching satellites than building anything. But it would take me longer to get a satellite in the air than the weeks it will take me to fix a broken shelf in my kitchen. And hyperscalers are connecting in months, not weeks.

[BurningFrog]

It's also infinitly easier to get 24/7 unadulterated sunlight for your solar panels.

[dantillberg]

Not 24/7 in low earth orbit, but perhaps at an earth-moon or earth-sun L4/L5 lagrange point. Though with higher latency to earth.

[BurningFrog]

There are Sun-Synchronous Orbits, and those are what SpaceX plans to use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit

[dantillberg]

Well, that's neat. TIL. Thanks for the link!

[fodkodrasz]

So what? Why is it important to have 24/7 solar, that you cannot have on the ground? On the ground level you have fossil fuels.

I wonder if you were thinking about muh emissions for a chemical rocket launched piece of machinery containing many toxic metals to be burnt up in the air in 3-5 years... It doesn't sound more environmentally friendly.

[BurningFrog]

Getting enough energy for your AI data centers is one of the most limiting factors for AI technology.

Solar in space is about 5-10x as effective as solar on the ground.

[fodkodrasz]

So what? Just build some nuclear power plants if AI data centers are so important. It can even work at night when it is infinitely as effective as solar on the ground!

Also I'm astounded how important AI data centers are when we are running out of freshwater, to mention a thing we could easily solve with focusing our efforts on it instead of this. But yeah, surely the Space AI Data Centers (aka. "SkyNet") is the most important we must build...

Also this is just about Elon jumping the shark...

[bdangubic]

that may have been the case before but it is not anymore. I live in Northern VA, the capital of the data centers and it is easier to build one permit-wise than a tree house. also see provisions in OBBB

[floatrock]

I mean, you don't have zoning in space, but you have things like international agreements to avoid, you know, catastrophic human development situations like kessler syndrome.

All satellites launched into orbit these days are required to have de-orbiting capabilities to "clean up" after EOL.

I dunno, two years ago I would have said municipal zoning probably ain't as hard to ignore as international treaties, but who the hell knows these days.

[JumpCrisscross]

> you have things like international agreements to avoid, you know, catastrophic human development

Yes. These are permitted in weeks for small groups, days for large ones. (In America.)

Permitting is a legitimate variable that weighs in favor of in-space data centers.

[viraptor]

> is spending 90% of their bullshit budget on battlig state and local governments

Source? I can't immediately find anything like that.

[kelseyfrog]

Parent just means "a lot" and is using 90% to convey their opinion. The actual numbers are closer to 0.083%[1][2][3][4] and parent thinks they should be 0.01-0.1% of the total build cost.

1. Assuming 500,000 USD in permitting costs. See 2.

2. Permits and approvals: Building permits, environmental assessments, and utility connection fees add extra expenses. In some jurisdictions, the approval process alone costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. https://www.truelook.com/blog/data-center-construction-costs

3. Assuming a 60MW facility at $10M/MW. See 4.

4. As a general rule, it costs between $600 to $1,100 per gross square foot or $7 million to $12 million per megawatt of commissioned IT load to build a data center. Therefore, if a 700,000-square foot, 60-megawatt data center were to be built in Northern Virginia, the world’s largest data center market, it would cost between $420 million and $770 million to construct the facility, including its powered shell and equipping the building with the appropriate electrical systems and HVAC components. https://dgtlinfra.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-data-...

[viraptor]

Yeah, I was trying to be nicer than "you're making it up" just in case someone has the actual numbers.

[mike_hearn]

He said bullshit budget, not budget. He's thinking about opportunity and attention costs, not saying that permits literally have a higher price tag than GPUs.

[kelseyfrog]

Maybe try meditation? It can help deal with negative emotions.

[sapphicsnail]

What counts towards a bullshit budget? Permitting is a drop in the bucket compared to construction costs.

[deepGem]

This is a huge one. What Musk is looking for is freedom from land acquisition. Everything else is an engineering and physics problem that he will somehow solve. The land acquisition problem is out of his hands and he doesn't want to deal with politicians. He learned from building out the Memphis DC.

[markhahn]

Maybe, but I'm skeptical, because current DCs are not designed to minimize footprint. Has anyone even built a two-story DC? Obviously cooling is always an issue, but not, directly, land.

Now that I think of it, a big hydro dam would be perfect: power and cooling in one place.

[mbushey]

> Has anyone even built a two-story DC?

Downtown Los Angeles: The One Wilshire building, which is the worlds most connected building. There are over twenty floors of data centers. I used Corporate Colo which was a block or two away. That building had at least 10 floors of Data Centers.

[reverius42]

I think Downtown Seattle has a bunch too (including near Amazon campus). I just looked up one random one and they have about half the total reported building square footage of a 10-story building used for a datacenter: https://www.datacenters.com/equinix-se3-seattle

[lambdaone]

Multistory DCs are commonplace in major cities.

[bigfatkitten]

> Has anyone even built a two-story DC?

Every DC I’ve been in (probably around 20 in total) has been multi storey.

[deepGem]

Skepticism is valid. The environmentalists came after dams too.

[EdwardDiego]

So freedom from law and regulation?

[blactuary]

He "learned" by illegally poisoning black people

> an engineering and physics problem that he will somehow solve

no he won't