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Rover222today at 5:30 PM3 repliesview on HN

Reading the comments here again surprises me how in an anti-Elon bubble most folks are. They are renting out spare Colossus 1 capacity. Colossus 2 is still coming online. Orbital data centers are really the plan in the next few years. XAi is still behind, but not a disaster considering how late they entered (and Elon’s unfortunate fixation on anime characters).

SpaceX is extremely uniquely positioned to crush the rest of the world combined in order to orbital data centers.


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namnnumbrtoday at 7:10 PM

AFAIK "orbital data centers" are a bunch of nonsense.

1. GPUs create heat. There's no efficient way to get rid of the heat in space (vacuum is an insulator). 2. Die-shrink makes modern processors and memory more and more susceptible to radiation; shielding is possible, but adds cost + mass (which adds cost)

HarHarVeryFunnytoday at 6:05 PM

> SpaceX is extremely uniquely positioned to crush the rest of the world combined in order to orbital data centers

Sure, as long as your data center is 3x4m - size of a Starlink satellite (think Spinal Tap Stone Henge) . Anything bigger than that (i.e. actual data center sized) is going to require some assembly.

I've heard TeslaBot is good at folding shirts, and serving drinks (at least while teleoperated) - perhaps it can help?

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hellohello2today at 6:28 PM

I struggle to understand how orbital data centers can make sense. Is it mainly for continuous solar energy? Surely this can't be enough to offset the costs of launching?

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