[dlcarrier]

The advantage is that it's not in anyone's backyard. No where in the US is in-the-middle-of-nowhere enough for developers to avoid backlash. If it weren't for that, orbital data centers would not be cost effective. In the real world, they likely are, especially as the cost of launching satellites has plummeted.

It's the same boat as nuclear power plants. There's no economical reason to build small modular independent nuclear reactors. It makes much more financial sense to combine as much infrastructure as possible, even when the reaction chambers themselves are small and modular, like a CANDU reactor. Yet, getting approval for a few small things is much easier than one big thing, and getting approval is what's preventing nuclear power from being cost effective, so the most cost effective option is to spend more on infrastructure, so you can much, much less getting approval.