[ExI] Even the Sky May Not Be the Limit for A.I. Data Centers

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jan 1, 2026 at 11:03 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

*> We tend to imagine away heat control and radiation effects as something
> that is a low level engineering problem, but we have had microprocessors in
> space for a long time and neither of these problems have been solved for
> what we think of as modern processors.  If we imagine a high end modern GPU
> we can estimate a power consumption of about a kW. That’s nearly a square
> meter of solar cells to power it and we still haven’t gotten to how to
> extract the heat from that processor. *
>

*If a one square meter solar cell powers a GPU in space then a one square
meter heat radiator angled at right angles to the solar cell panel should
be more than enough to cool that GPU down because the radiator has access
to a very good heat sink that is at only 2.7° kelvin, empty space.  *



> *> The radiation is a big deal too: It causes SEUs or Single Event Upsets
> from cosmic rays hitting individual components.  This usually necessitates
> larger components, limiting compute power in space.*
>

*Communication satellites are in geostationary orbits 36,000 km high and
that puts them right in the middle of the outer van Allen radiation belt,
and yet the average lifetime of a communication satellite is about 15
years, and some of them last for 25. Because of atmospheric drag a data
center satellite couldn't be in low earth orbit, but it would have no need
to be in a geostationary orbit either; if it was in a polar orbit of 8000
km atmospheric drag wouldn't be a problem, its solar cells would be in
constant sunshine, and it would receive considerably less radiation than
communication satellites do because it would be above the inner van Allen
radiation belt and below the outer van Allen radiation belt. *

*And a data satellite wouldn't need to last for 15 years because the GPUs
in it would become obsolescent in about 3 years and after 5 years or less
they would be downright obsolete, so they would need to be replaced anyway.
But the solar cells and the satellite's cooling and communication systems
would still be OK.*


*John K Clark*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20260102/d98ea4ae/attachment.htm>