this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
190 points (95.2% liked)

Technology

79985 readers
3658 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

In a blog post, Musk said the acquisition was warranted because global electricity demand for AI cannot be met with “terrestrial solutions,” and Silicon Valley will soon need to build data centers in space to power its AI ambitions.

This dumb fuck. Unfortunately, his boosters will be all-in on this messaging. Whatever.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 13 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

What advantage does space provide at all?

You have to transport heavy great into a place with no cooling capacity... What?

[–] rimu@piefed.social 11 points 14 hours ago

No advantage, in fact a massive disadvantage.

Fascists lie.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

mainly no red tape trying to connect to a power grid, plus "free" solar power.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 hours ago

We have “free” solar here on Earth. 

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

No cooling capacity? Isn't it the extreme opposite?

[–] ebc@lemmy.ca 22 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

No, it's pretty hard to get rid of heat in space, vacuum is a very good insulator. The only way is radiation.

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 8 points 14 hours ago
[–] Chronographs@lemmy.zip 17 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

No, space isn’t cold it’s empty. You need something to conduct away the heat, otherwise all you can do is passively radiate it

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 5 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

Fascinating. Will look more into it to understand.

[–] Dultas@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

I think Scott Manly might have had a video on it (data enter in space) recently. I saw it on a feed but haven't watched it. I'm sure he would mention the issues with heat removal.

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

https://youtu.be/DCto6UkBJoI

TLDW: cooling's fine if you use starlink V2 size and power (which is not very suitable for AI 'datacentre' use) because it works already.

This is not about a few huge datacentres, it's about a million small ones. There’s 99 problems with this (see Kessler syndrome !, radiation, …), cooling isn’t (much of) one.

Doesn't matter anyway, it just has to be vaguely plausible for a stock IPO pump (and dump) scheme while sweeping all that xAI debt under the rug.

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 0 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

https://youtu.be/d-YcVLq98Ew&t=8m24s

Doesn't say why a vacuum cannot conduct heat though, but it makes sense to me now anyhow. Heat is vibrating molecules so to mitigate the vibration you need adjacent molecules which aren't vibrating as much.

[–] jagermo@feddit.org 1 points 14 hours ago

Read the traveller sourcebooks, they especially for the ship designs. Good stuff

[–] Herr_S_aus_H@lemmy.zip -2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Welcome to middle school physics.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 hours ago

Don't be a dick. Not everyone remembers everything they did in middle school.