Comment by yardie 4 days ago
I asked Google for more information about AI datacenter in space. This was the first sentence, 'AI data centers are being developed in space to handle the massive energy demands of AI, using solar power and the vacuum of space for cooling.'
> After laughing at "the vacuum of space for cooling" I closed the page because there was nothing serious there. Basic high school physics student would be laughing at that sentence.
You can radiate the excess energy away on the non-sun facing part. In theory.
There are even commercially available prototypes of that vacuum cooling technology, if you want to perform your own experiments with that concept: https://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Stainless-Ounce-Drink-Bottle/...
this kind of sarcasm will go over their head. People truly don't understand vacuums
I absolutely don't understand how vacuum works. So I absolutely cannot model how a Dewar flask which has 15 billion light year thickness between the inner and outer wall - a wall that is very close to absolute zero will behave.
I wonder if there should be levels of "in theory". Yes theoretically black body radiation exist and well stuff cools down to near background radiation via that. But the next level is theoretical implementation. Like actually moving around the heat from source and so on. Maybe this could be the spherical cow step...
Reminds me of the hyperloop. Well yes, things in vacuum tube go fast. Now does enough things go fast to make any sense...
>Now does enough things go fast to make any sense...
You're worried about rates when we can't even get the ball rolling on safety for human occupancy, maintenance, workability.
I swear, nothing on Earth more dangerous than someone with dollar signs in their eyes.
Heat conduction requires a medium, but radiation works perfectly fine in a vacuum. Otherwise the Sun wouldn't be able to heat up the Earth. The problem for spacecraft is that you're limited by how much IR radiation is passively emitted from your heat sinks, you can't actively expel heat any faster.
There is some medium in low Earth orbit. Not all vacuums are created equal. However, LEO vacuum is still very, very sparse compared to the air and water we use for cooling systems.
The main way that heat dissipates from space stations and satellites is through thermal radiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation.
Hot objects emit infrared light no matter the conditions. The hotter the object, the more light it throws off. By radiating this light away, thermal energy is necessarily consumed and transformed into light. It's kind of wild actually
No, you can't. You need to radiate away all the heat being received from the sun facing half, AND excess heat from the compute. Even in theory, the non-sun-facing part doesn't give you any benefit. It's already part of the system that accounted for the temperature of the sun-facing side.
"just as well"?
I man you totally can radiate excess heat energy on earth, but your comment implies that the parents idea of radiating off excess "energy", specifically HEAT energy in space is possible, which it isn't.
You can radiate excess energy for sure, but you'd first have to convert it away from heat energy into light or radio waves or similar.
I don't think we even have that tech at this point in time, and neither do we have any concepts how this could be done in theory.
>specifically HEAT energy in space is possible, which it isn't.
I see, yes. I was thinking more along the lines of radiating heat energy at a scale that's useable for cooling, not at the more extreme levels of over 500°C/1k fahrenheit
That's technically correct I guess, at some temperature threshold it becomes possible to bleed some fractions of energy while the material is exceedingly hot.
Passively yeah. Can't imagine it's anywhere near as fast as evap or chillers
There's no air and negligible thermal medium to convect heat away. The only way heat leaves is through convection from the extremely sparse atmosphere in low Earth orbit (less than a single atom per cubic millimeter) and through thermal radiation. Both of which are much, much slower than convection with water or air.
Space stations need enormous radiator panels to dissipate the heat from the onboard computers and the body heat of a few humans. Cooling an entire data center would require utterly colossal radiator panels.
I'mma guess that AI mixed up "datacenter" with "Dyson" to get nonsensical returns involving both vacuums AND space!
You could help by using the thumbs down button below the answer.
If you would kindly consult your Human HR Universal Handbook (2025 Edition) and navigate to section 226.8.2F, you’ll be gently reminded that it’s the responsibility of any and all employees to train their replacements.
Interestingly, this comment gets a lot of downvotes.
If you don't want to help improve the world, then how are you expecting things to become better?
I understand that people don't like it that this will give Google an advantage. But what is the proper alternative? We have no non-profit organizations who could muster the money to build these systems. I suppose those who are critical of large companies would also be critical of governments building these systems.
So is what you (downvoters) propose here to just complain and do nothing about it? I'd be curious to hear what alternatives you propose.
I tried Google and it pointed me to a ycombinator video about Starcloud https://youtu.be/hKw6cRKcqzY They launched a satellite with one H100 in on Nov 2nd.
>I mean, when you tell people that within 10 years it could be the case that most new data centers are being built in space, that sounds wacky to a lot of people, but not to YC. (8:00)