Can AI data centers be moved to outer space?

Here ε is the emissivity of the object—how effective it is as a radiator (0 ε < 1), σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, ON is the area, and T is the temperature (in Kelvin). Since our temperature is to the fourth power, you can see that warmer things radiate very more power than cooler things.

OK, say you want to play Red Dead Redemption in space. Your computer is going to get hot—perhaps 200 F (366 Kelvin). To keep it simple, let’s say it’s a cube-shaped computer with a total surface area of ​​1 square meter, and it’s a perfect heatsink (ε = 1). The thermal radiation power would then be approximately 1,000 watts. Of course your computer is not a perfect cooler, but it looks like you’ll be right. As long as the output is greater than the input (300 watts), it will cool.

Now say you want to use some modest AI stuff. This is a bigger job, so let’s scale up our cubic computer with edges twice as long as before. This will increase the volume eight times (2³), so we can have eight times as many processors, which means we need eight times as much power supply—2,400 watts. However, the area is only four times (2²) larger, so the radiation power will be about 4,000 watts. You still have more output than input, but the gap is closing.

Size matters

You can see where this is going. If you keep scaling it up, the volume grows faster than the area. So the bigger your space computer, the harder it is to cool. If you imagine an orbiting Walmart-sized structure, like the data centers on Earth, it’s just not going to happen. It would melt.

Of course you can add external radiation panels. The International Space Station has this. How big will they need to be? Well, say your data center runs on 1 megawatt. (Existing AI data centers on Earth use 100 to 1,000 megawatts.) Then you’d need a radiating surface of at least 980 square meters. It’s getting out of hand.

Oh, and these coolers aren’t like solar panels connected by wires. They need systems to direct heat away from the processors to the panels. For this, the ISS pumps ammonia through a network of pipes. This means even more material, making it that much more expensive to hoist into orbit.

So let’s stock up. Although we set it up with favorable assumptions, it doesn’t look very good. We don’t even consider the fact that solar radiation will also heat up the computer, which will require even more cooling. Or that intense solar radiation is likely to damage the electronics over time. And how do you do repairs?

One thing is clear, though: Because cooling in space is inefficient, your “data center” will need to be a swarm of small satellites with better surface-to-volume ratios, not a few large ones. This is what most proponents, such as Google’s Project Suncatcher, are now suggesting. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already requested FCC permission to launch a million small AI satellites into orbit.

Hmm. Low Earth orbit is already overloaded with 10,000 active satellites and about 10,000 metric tons of space debris. The risk of collisions, perhaps even catastrophic Kessler Falls, is already real. And we’re going to add a hundred times as many satellites? all i can say is, Check out below!

So what is the answer to our question? Theoretically, you could probably create an off-planet computing system with very small satellites, although the launch and construction costs would be astronomical. Whether that’s a good idea is another question entirely.