> And Starlink / xAI is going to shoot them into space.
I highly doubt that. They claim they want to shoot them into space, but I don’t believe a word of it until I see it happen (and see it work). It’s no more real than hyperloop.
DCs in space is hype but actually makes no rational sense when you figure the size of radiators you'll need, and while solar cells are more efficient in space, they aren't that much better.
The Google paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.19468) didn’t seem too concerned with radiator mass/size when I skimmed it, but maybe I just missed it. My understanding is that if you run the chips relatively hot (and maybe boost with heat pumps? But then you’re not quite as solid state, and maintenance is tough up there), the radiation ability increases enough such that you can make the radiators slightly smaller than the solar panels, and they’d sit on the dark side of the panels. Many people like to point to the ISS system and scale that up, but there’s a big difference between a system assembled in space and meant to keep humans at human temps vs mass manufactured on the ground and keeping things around 100C.
I highly doubt that. They claim they want to shoot them into space, but I don’t believe a word of it until I see it happen (and see it work). It’s no more real than hyperloop.