reply on: "Project Suncatcher" Aims to Build TPU Powered AI Data Centers in Space \ stacker news ~AI

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71 sats \ 9 replies \ @optimism 17 Nov \ on: "Project Suncatcher" Aims to Build TPU Powered AI Data Centers in Space AI

Cooling would be achieved through a thermal system of heat pipes and radiators while operating at nominal temperatures.

Wish they had real details on this part. It's why we're not mining Bitcoin in space.

@petertodd wrote about mining bitcoin in space and we'd need to underclock or spread the heated surface area by a factor of 6400.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism 23h

Yeah I remember that post, it was a good one. I'm not saying that it's impossible. Just: does it make actual economic sense as long as we haven't even really started building vertical data centers? We're still very much 2D and Microsoft's latest "super data center" (#1281419) has been lauded for z{1..2}.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 23h

True. I was surprised that the second floor was notable.

Perhaps when there's an advantage to gathering raw materials and manufacturing GPUs/ASICs and solar panels in space, this kind of thing makes more sense.

100 sats \ 4 replies \ @Scroogey 23h

If we’re going to use chips in that package, we need to spread that heat. Roughly speaking, we need to spread the heat from a 1cm2 area to a 80cm2, or a circle with a radius of 5cm2.

That's a factor of 80, how do you get 6400?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 23h

area = length * width

200 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scroogey 23h

You're saying

80 cm^2

is 6400 times the area of

1 cm^2

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 23h

oh lol you're right. i read that as "1x1cm and 80x80cm" rather than 1 and 80 square centimeters. i don't know why i did that.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 12h

Good catch, I somehow glanced over it and in my mind did @k00b's (wrong) explanation below too.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fenix 20h

I was going to ask that and I saw you asked it; besides asking, there was a whole technical explanation that I don't understand. It would be good to mine in space; the hard part is building the rocket.