Thread

Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space

233 points · 553 comments · xnx

kin · 1790291957 · focus · HN ↗
For those questioning viability, there's a startup called Starcloud <a href="https://www.starcloud.com/">https://www.starcloud.com/ with a public whitepaper explaining a bit their hardware and economics <a href="https://www.starcloud.com/wp">https://www.starcloud.com/wp. They've already had one small proof of concept launched. Not trying to promote, I just heard about them on the ycomb podcast
1. stingrae · 1790292853 · focus · HN ↗
  “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
  1. hdgvhicv · 1790316236 · focus · HN ↗
    Desert land is full of that amount of area available for peanuts.
    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.
    King-Aaron · 1790316542 · focus · HN ↗
    You can fly a drone laden with fireworks across a desert. Harder to do in LEO
    consp · 1790320174 · focus · HN ↗
    The only reason I see in putting those things in space is to do illegal things. Otherwise the economies do not make sense. The "terrorism" threat is nearly non existant in practice and only the legislative threat is real, which might be good cause to think about what you are doing in the first place.
    DoctorOetker · 1790322265 · focus · HN ↗
    > The only reason I see in putting those things in space is to do illegal things.
    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.
    XorNot · 1790323244 · focus · HN ↗
    What the heck are you talking about? Basic grounding problem: who the god damn hell is going to be buying your AI compute from space if the situation on Earth has deteriorated that much? You know that place where 100% of your customers and the hostile legislative bodies would be.
    King-Aaron · 1790324576 · focus · HN ↗
    > who the god damn hell is going to be buying your AI compute from space if the situation on Earth has deteriorated that much?
    Militaries.
    hdgvhicv · 1790342061 · focus · HN ↗
    Ones that have to worry about local laws?
    busssard · 1790331370 · focus · HN ↗
    this is also about geopolitics. Destroying satellites in space hurts your own space infrastructure (see the movie "Gravity")
    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.
    NetMageSCW · 1790370732 · focus · HN ↗
    The movie Gravity was not a documentary. It broke more laws of physics than the claims about data centers do.
    busssard · 1790418234 · focus · HN ↗
    exaggeration makes visible, runaway collisions are definitely a problem. I didnt like the movie, but space collisions are no joke...
    igleria · 1790335862 · focus · HN ↗
    cheaper to defend on earth than launch and maintain in space.

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