“A 5 GW data center would require a solar array with dimensions of approximately 4 km by 4 km”
I think dodging debris is challenging at that scale.
Also this is the solar cells not the radiators
I think dodging debris is challenging at that scale.
Also this is the solar cells not the radiators
That’s 4000 acres. I see a 6000 acre ranch available in Arizona for $7m. The cost of building a 5GW DC is about 100 billion. Land including enough for all the solar and battery you need to be completely self sufficient is basically free.
Consider a global human population, fractured into historically formed nations and power blocs. Consider corruption and clans taking up a fraction of positions of power at a certain duty cycle. It's unavoidable legislative bodies would eventually abuse control of technology, for those points in time yes, doing the right thing becomes doing the illegal thing, but only because corruption attained such powers.
> Otherwise the economies do not make sense.
The economics at what scale? At scales of earthly compute, earth is cheaper and more maintainable. At stellar scale, the power simply isn't available on Earth, so the most economic path is whatever is the most economic space ML datacenter path.
Militaries.
On the ground nothing harms your own infra by dropping a bomb on another datacenter that might be powering the opponents entire military strategy.
Terrorism threat is nonexistent now, but maybe not in the future.
Up to you how plausible you think that is.
> Figure 3. A data center in Sun Synchronous Orbit, showing a 4km x 4km deployed solar array and radiators.
given solar cells are only 30% efficient. if you put the radiators behind the panels then you have the structure already and always keep the radiators shaded
So not really. There are some proposals for space-based geoengineering, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S146290112... has a summary. I can't say how plausible any of them are.