Data centers in space?
The pros and the cons
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Amazon's Jeff Bezos have both pointed out that data centers to run AI might be best placed in space.
In fact, there are lots of problems with data centers on the ground. There's the top problem of sufficient energy needs, followed by community objections, poor use of farmland, and tax and regulatory issues.
According to Musk, space could solve most of these problems.
A space data center could have access to unlimited, free solar power. The vacuum of space would allow efficient cooling. Space-based compute would travel faster by light in a vacuum than fiber optics on the ground. Issues of taxes, bureaucracy, maintenance costs would be reduced or eliminated.
But Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu is a party pooper.
Yu says rocket launches cost too much and costs would have to decrease by about 87 percent before it would be viable.
Author Zach Weinersmith claims that while space is cold, cooling a data center in space is far more difficult and would require more tech.
Maintenance and repair would be more difficult and drive up cost of production, other analysts say.
