Could AI Data Centers Be Moved to Outer Space? (www.wired.com)

As the demand for AI data centers surges, concerns about their massive energy and water consumption have led to discussions about moving these facilities to outer space. By 2028, AI servers may use as much electricity as 22% of U.S. households, creating pressures on local resources and contributing to global warming. In response, some advocates propose leveraging the constant sunlight in space and the frigid temperatures to eliminate thermal management issues, suggesting that processing could occur in orbit while data is beamed back to Earth. However, the feasibility of building data centers in space faces significant challenges. Cooling systems would rely solely on thermal radiation, which is less efficient than conduction, making it difficult to manage heat in larger structures. Scaling up would exacerbate these issues, as the volume increases faster than the surface area, complicating the cooling process. This has led to the idea of using swarms of small satellites instead of large data centers to optimize area-to-volume ratios. Nonetheless, with increasing congestion in low Earth orbit and the threat of collisions, proponents must address both technical and logistical barriers before this concept can become a reality for the AI/ML community.