[ExI] AI computers and power in space

[Keith Henson]

John Clark posted:

Apr 28, 2024, 4:54 AM (1 day ago)

to extropolis, 'Brent Explore this gift article from The New York
Times. You can read it for free without a subscription.

In Race to Build A.I., Tech Plans a Big Plumbing Upgrade

The spending that the industry’s giants expect artificial intelligence
to require is starting to come into focus — and it is jarringly large.

^^^^^^

My work on thermal power satellites got the estimated cost down to 3
cents per kWh.  Without the 50% transmission loss, 1.5 cents per kWh
is possible.  In addition to the huge radiator area, heeded for the
power generation, it would require around half again as much area to
get rid of the computation heat.  On the other hand, the design does
not need a power transmission antenna.  Further, it could be placed in
an orbit lower than GEO inclined more than 23 deg to avoid the shadow
of the Earth and the thermal shock from the shadow.

Thermal radiators are arranged as pairs of tapered plastic tubes
filled with 20 deg C condensing steam.  The tubes make a planer
surface facing solar north/south and shaded from the sun.
Concentrator mirrors focus sunlight into boilers or PV.  Power
generation and computation would happen at the ends of the tube pairs.
There is an animation of a 1.5 GW radiator about 4:30 into
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEkZkINrJaA  That may be larger than
any data center on earth.

Data centers are already generating a fair amount of NIMBY pushback.
This is a way to push computation off Earth.

There is an extremely speculative safety reason to move AI off Earth.
If the AIs ever went rogue and were already in space, they might leave
planetary surfaces deep in gravity wells alone.

Keith