If space doesn't work or is deemed too expensive put them right next to the house where the CEO of the company and his family live. Same with nuclear plants, rocket launch sites and chemical plants.

Why don't we just put them where the people who want them live?

As soon as we figure out how to build a practical and cost effective way to radiate megawatts of heat in a vacuum I'm sure we will!

While that "solution" is, er, not strictly against the laws of physics, it still falls into the subcategory of "utterly insane", once one looks at the real tonnages and watts and dollars and engineering problems.

It was never a serious proposal, it's just some zillionaire's daydream about having their own Neuromancer-style space-station, a place where their word is law and their dynasty assured by a pet superintelligence.

The only "data-center in space" we're likely to see will be tiny low-power satellites, offering themselves as extraterritorial hosting (i.e. actual data, versus processing) for stuff like an oligarch's ill-gotten crypto-currency.

Heat radiation by convection doesn't work great in a vacuum.

this is the way!

one of the biggest threats to AI accelerationism longterm is the public rioting or foreign governments launching attacks against data centers

the plebians won't be able to burn the data centers if you put them in space though.

"Our researchers were so busy working out whether they could, noone stopped to wonder whether they should"

And yet no proof-of-concept has been attempted. Just another Elon saying at this point.

Another solution is to pray to the sun god for the wisdom of the universe.