Thread

Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space

233 points · 553 comments · xnx

fwlr · 1790297624 · focus · HN ↗
Yes, the physics are worse, and yes, the economics are worse, but data centers in space have the crucial advantage that they are out of range of the molotov-throwing arm of Joe Public (recently unemployed).
1. thelastgallon · 1790304034 · focus · HN ↗
  Businesses run anywhere real money can be made. Middle east is the most volatile place. Yet, the businesses are perfectly okay building infrastructure to extract, refine and ship oil from there.
  If real money can be made, there is no need of datacenters in space. Offer some country some money and they'll let you build whatever you want. The whole idea is entirely unprofitable thats why they are making up things that won't work economically. Keep giving us money indefinitely, we'll keep spending, money can be made after a few decades of spending ... trust us.
  1. throwaway473825 · 1790304698 · focus · HN ↗
    Note that you didn't mention any such country, and for good reason - there is none.
    You'd need a dictatorship where people's voices don't matter, but then there's no right of ownership either.
    thelastgallon · 1790307189 · focus · HN ↗
    > You'd need a dictatorship where people's voices don't matter, but then there's no right of ownership either.
    And there are plenty of those countries. As well as countries that aren't dictatorships. Every leader everywhere is available for sale. In democracies, usually for a small sum. Dictatorships ask for a percentage of profit.
    Everyone knows how the current administration got to power: <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/elon-musk-2024-election-spending-millions" rel="nofollow">https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/elon-musk-2024-e...
    Trump will gladly allow datacenters to be built on federal lands. Just like he allows Oil/Coal and bans Wind and Solar. The only reason there is new story of Space Datacenters is because even if they are given everything by the Govt, it simply won't work.
    If you see a datacenter in orbit, it means something went wrong on Earth: <a href="https://systemsthinkingcollection.substack.com/p/space-datacenters" rel="nofollow">https://systemsthinkingcollection.substack.com/p/space-datac...
    People believe all kinds of fiction and garbage, like going to Mars. (Why Terraform Mars When We Can Fix The Earth? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8mhib97--n4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8mhib97--n4)
    The same argument holds for AI DCs. If you can build profitable AI datacenters in space, why can't you build profitable AI datacenters on Earth? The only reason is you can't build profitable AI datacenters on earth. Just give us a few more trillions and wait a decade or two, we promise ...
    jazzyjackson · 1790307693 · focus · HN ↗
    This idea that space is a way to get out of the reach of NIMBYs is so dumb.
    a: now you’re in everyone’s back yard, since satellites in orbit can be seen by the naked eye at twilight zipping across the sky, so now the whole earth hates you
    b: you are still launching from earth, which is a pretty significant target if you’re worried about ecoterrorism.
    stymaar · 1790315254 · focus · HN ↗
    > b: you are still launching from earth, which is a pretty significant target if you’re worried about ecoterrorism.
    This so much. Good luck destroying a DC on earth without a very strong force. On the other hand, destroying a rocket on its launchpad just take one FPV drone.
    defrost · 1790315754 · focus · HN ↗
    > Good luck destroying a DC on earth without a very strong force.
    Leaving aside the DCs already destroyed in the Iran totally not a War by an enemy that can be easily crushed at any moment ...
    DCs in mainland US aren't well defended - a pattern of shrapnel heads landed by a mobile mortar or two with a 2 km radius would render most in need of some upkeep.
    stymaar · 1790330095 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure, but in my view any organized actor with military hardware in their hands count as a “very strong force” when compared to the average Joe with a Molotov cocktail. And Iran, as a state actor with ballistic capabilities is obviously one as well.
    defrost · 1790389342 · focus · HN ↗
    A couple of rednecks in a pickup with a mortar is far from "a very strong force"; consider how you would upgrade their description if they additionally had three helicopters, now describe them if additionally their numbers doubled, now throw in a couple of tanks.
    When you start describing rabble level opposition that high you run out of ceiling very quickly.
    The US is filled with ex service personal who can whip together a mortar, as "military hardware" goes it's on par with what civilian firework techs have access to and can build in a garden shed, it's home grown resistance level guerilla tech.
    If there's growing ground swell opposition to US data centres then the same Y'All-Qaeda militia plotting against dams and power substations will feel empowered to have a shot at a DC or too.
    stymaar · 1790410322 · focus · HN ↗
    If you consider a full fledged insurgency in a civil war setting, you're very far from “one angry dude throwing a molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's DC” that was the original point.
    I don't think the US have the social fabric needed for an insurgency to develop on though.
    defrost · 1790486455 · focus · HN ↗
    > If you consider a full fledged insurgency in a civil war setting
    Who said anything about civil war?
    The US has many splinter loon groups who blow up buildings and like to attack infrastructure (see: US news). This has happened over the past decades with no civil war.
    Data centres are soft targets - softer than banks. Do you remember when armed bank robberies were all the rage in the 1970s and 1980s? Not a time of civil war, just a time when a couple of people took control of buildings while heavily armed. Such a small group with fragmentation grenades can easily render a data centre unfit for use for several months with relative ease and fast ingress and egress.
    stymaar · 1790537107 · focus · HN ↗
    Armed robberies are done with profit motives by professionalized members of the organized crime. By definition these people have access to the kind of organization and weapons you need to mount such attacks.
    Politically motivated armed attacks are a totally different thing.
    Also, I think you massively underestimate the sheer size of an IA data center. If you want to destroy one with grenades you're going to need a literal truck load of grenades.
    defrost · 1790552295 · focus · HN ↗
    > Armed robberies are done with profit motives by professionalized members of the organized crime. By definition these people have access to the kind of organization and weapons you need to mount such attacks.
    Really? Maybe read up some more, OC scale mafia groups weren't doing many of the bank raids of the US 1970s / 1980s - in any case these are still well below my bar on what constitutes a "very strong force".
    > Also, I think you massively underestimate the sheer size of an IA data center.
    You think wrong.
    > If you want to destroy one with grenades you're going to need a literal truck load of grenades.
    Exactly right, or rather several drums of farm grade fertiliser, diesel, ball bearings, a stolen truck, and somebody (or two) prepared to do a ram raid. Groomed idealogues or addicts with debt have all been used for such things.
    Or, as already mentioned, drive parallel and mortar the centre from one end to the other, achievable by small discontent militia types (who abound in the US).
    stymaar · 1791135949 · focus · HN ↗
    > Exactly right, or rather several drums of farm grade fertiliser, diesel, ball bearings, a stolen truck, and somebody (or two) prepared to do a ram raid. […] Serious question time: Are you honestly unaware of Timothy McVeigh?
    Again a great illustration that you have a scale issue in your reasoning, even if you managed to do as much damage as McVeigh you'd be very far from destroying a DC. If you're lucky you'd have 10% of the GPUs being destroyed and only one half of the DC being able to restart working by the next Monday, and if you aren't your trucks blows off outside of the building and only the racks closest to the wall are damaged and the DC doesn't even stop operating on that day.

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