"It really seems like anyone with some renders and a white paper written by someone being gassed up by an overly agreeable AI can get VC funding these days."
Building something the size of an (unmanned) space station for a single server rack, yes, it makes no sense. The energy needed to lift all that stuff into orbit, the comically inefficient cooling and never mind the issues of impact damage and radiation and inability to do any service (without huge effort) if things go wrong, all make this a pretty irrational idea.
Just put that server rack in Iceland with geothermal power and closed loop heat pump. But then the tech oligarchs would have to comply with laws and that is probably the reason they want it up in space. There surely is no technical reason for it.
Data / hardware sovereignty is a real thing, you can’t put all your data centers in another county, but building them in Texas vs Vermont/Alaska or elsewhere is stupid.
You do need margins not just for humans.
Building something the size of an (unmanned) space station for a single server rack, yes, it makes no sense. The energy needed to lift all that stuff into orbit, the comically inefficient cooling and never mind the issues of impact damage and radiation and inability to do any service (without huge effort) if things go wrong, all make this a pretty irrational idea.
Just put that server rack in Iceland with geothermal power and closed loop heat pump. But then the tech oligarchs would have to comply with laws and that is probably the reason they want it up in space. There surely is no technical reason for it.
Data / hardware sovereignty is a real thing, you can’t put all your data centers in another county, but building them in Texas vs Vermont/Alaska or elsewhere is stupid.