[aorloff]

Reliably and efficiently transport energy generated in space back to earth, for starters

Or let me guess, its going to be profitable to mine crypto in space (thereby solving the problem of transporting the "work" back to earth)

[mlindner]

It's always better to generate electricity on the ground than attempt to beam it to the ground from space. The efficiency loss of beamed power is huge.

[amluto]

The efficiency loss of nighttime is approximately 100% if we’re talking about solar energy. At least at a most basic level, it’s not totally absurd to stick some kind of power beaming contraption in space where it is mostly not shadowed by the Earth and beam power to a ground station.

[brd529]

Overview energy has done interesting work in this area.

[_fizz_buzz_]

Beaming energy always sucks. Without some very fundamental discoveries in physics nobody will every make this work economically. This isn't just an engineering problem, it's a physics problem.

[mkull]

Why would you transfer the energy to earth? The energy powers ai compute = $

[Sparyjerry]

Dead on, You can transmit data to and from space and have the compute completed at potentially fractions of the cost.

[rlt]

Not sure why this is downvoted. Much cheaper to transfer data than energy.