Why AI data centers in space are not practical: cooling, radiation and maintenance
johnseach · x · 2026-11-01
A thread argues orbital AI data centers don't work: vacuum cooling means radiators alone must dump 60kW+ per rack; cosmic rays flip bits and degrade H100-class GPUs without bulky shielding; one rack may need a 16m×16m solar array plus eclipse batteries; failed satellites can't be repaired, only replaced; launch costs and round-trip bandwidth can't compete with terrestrial fiber, power density and cooling. Practical scope: satellite edge computing, small archival storage, science payloads. Full-scale orbital server farms remain science fiction.
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