Let's not forget about the orbital data center idea.
Perhaps an economic justification can be found for placing something so far up the gravity well that its adversaries can no longer physically approach it. Distributing the resource across many satellites would further confound any attack.
Increasing the cost of effect on a single target from $1,000 to $1,000,000,000 makes a difference. Especially when that 2nd option is likely to trigger additional multilateral strategic responses. If the only way to delete your adversaries data centers is with things like nuclear weapons, lasers and multi-stage rocketry, your adversary may have already won the game.
Except that doing this at scale is currently still a pipe dream. Space is a near-vacuum, so it's hard to get rid of the heat.
The active thermal control system (ATCS) on the ISS uses an ammonia loop and radiators measuring 13.6 x 3.12 meters, or about 42.5 square meters. It can dissipate 16 kW, which is enough for 16 H200s, or one-quarter of a rack on Earth. For 200 kW, you would need a system 12.5 times larger, about 531 square meters—2.6 times larger than the solar array. The satellite would be enormous, larger than the ISS, and all of that for only three racks.
The problem of the $ per kg to launch huge radiators and "orbital datacenter" type stuff of satellites into space doesn't seem to be resolving itself any time soon. Even if we hand wave away and say that 5 years from now the starship will be such a spectacular success than it costs only $200 per kg to send stuff into space (drastically lower than what it costs now), it would still be vastly less expensive to build a terrestrial solar datacenter in the middle of the southern Libyan desert than it would be to do the same amount of compute in space.
> it would still be vastly less expensive to build a terrestrial solar datacenter in the middle of the southern Libyan desert than it would be to do the same amount of compute in space.
Perhaps, but the parent comment posited that some people would pay the premium for orbital data center due to much better security. At $200 per kg to orbit, it could make sense.
So the "some day in the future" orbiting data centers proposed by a known fraudster will use an experimental-at-best radiator technology that has never been tested in flight yet? That tracks.
> Space is a near-vacuum, so it's hard to get rid of the heat.
It's not that hard, Starlink constellation already dissipates around 100 MW of heat, split over many satellites. Any orbital datacenter would use similarly distributed satellites.
> For 200 kW, you would need a system 12.5 times larger, about 531 square meters—2.6 times larger than the solar array. The satellite would be enormous, larger than the ISS, and all of that for only three racks.
Starlink gen 3 satellite is designed to dissipate 250 kW. You are talking about an already solved issue, with real hardware already being built today.
Ground to orbit antisat lasers are already plausibly something various militaries have.
Welding lasers are pretty cheap, the two hard parts are a big enough apperture to focus 500 km away, and adaptive optics, both of which have already been demonstrated decades ago in astronomy.
I'm not saying Iran and North Korea already have such capabilities, but I am saying I think neither would have trouble building it six months ago if they'd wanted to.
Perhaps an economic justification can be found for placing something so far up the gravity well that its adversaries can no longer physically approach it. Distributing the resource across many satellites would further confound any attack.
Increasing the cost of effect on a single target from $1,000 to $1,000,000,000 makes a difference. Especially when that 2nd option is likely to trigger additional multilateral strategic responses. If the only way to delete your adversaries data centers is with things like nuclear weapons, lasers and multi-stage rocketry, your adversary may have already won the game.
The active thermal control system (ATCS) on the ISS uses an ammonia loop and radiators measuring 13.6 x 3.12 meters, or about 42.5 square meters. It can dissipate 16 kW, which is enough for 16 H200s, or one-quarter of a rack on Earth. For 200 kW, you would need a system 12.5 times larger, about 531 square meters—2.6 times larger than the solar array. The satellite would be enormous, larger than the ISS, and all of that for only three racks.
https://codedtrip.com/en/blog/data-centers-in-space-disastro...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_droplet_radiator
Perhaps, but the parent comment posited that some people would pay the premium for orbital data center due to much better security. At $200 per kg to orbit, it could make sense.
It's not that hard, Starlink constellation already dissipates around 100 MW of heat, split over many satellites. Any orbital datacenter would use similarly distributed satellites.
Starlink gen 3 satellite is designed to dissipate 250 kW. You are talking about an already solved issue, with real hardware already being built today.
Welding lasers are pretty cheap, the two hard parts are a big enough apperture to focus 500 km away, and adaptive optics, both of which have already been demonstrated decades ago in astronomy.
I'm not saying Iran and North Korea already have such capabilities, but I am saying I think neither would have trouble building it six months ago if they'd wanted to.