Why they will be built in space:
Here's an argument why data centers will be built in space instead of on the ground. Projected by 2040, $700B/year of costs due to environmental, regulatory, and delay costs for building data centers on Earth. Compare this to decreasing launch costs (not shown here) to predict…
— Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) September 10, 2025
The linked article mentions how much water data centers use for cooling. I’ve never seen a good answer on how to provide that much cooling on orbit.
Ummmm…radiators?
I just listened to the Outernet guy being interviewed on Triggernometry. While I can understand the arguments for his network; I don’t quite buy putting a data center on orbit considering how quickly storage advances.
Yeah I think over time the energy and cooling requirements are going to decrease.
Yeah… No. The hassles of dealing with data centers in space are much the same as those for SSPSes. Or orbital missile platforms. It’s just easier to maintain and mod when on the ground. The comms bottleneck will also still be an issue. And the further out you go the bigger the latency issue kills you.
Yeah, data centers in space, dumb idea just like a nuclear reactor on the moon. Notice how all nuclear power plants on earth are built by cooling water. Cooling towers… hello. You can roll out many megawatts of solar panels on the moon for 1% the cost of nuclear.
Space nuclear power advocates rationally recognize the radiator problem so they want to use a Brayton which has higher heat rejection temperature thus smaller radiators. You can’t run your data centers at 300C. Plus how do you upgrade to the newest best Nvidia chip.