[fnord77]

I agree that data centers in space is nuts.

But I think there's solutions to the waste heat issue

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/engineer...

[OneDeuxTriSeiGo]

The distinction is that what they are doing for Webb is trying to dissipate small amounts of heat that would warm up sensors past cryogenic temperatures.

Like on the order of tens or hundreds of watts but -100C.

Dissipating heat for an AI datacenter is a different game. A single AI inference or training rack is going to be putting out somewhere around 100kW of waste heat. Temps don't have to be cryogenic but it's the difference between chiselling a marble or jade statue and excavating a quarry.

[fnord77]

got it - thanks

[boutell]

That's a solution for minuscule amounts of heat that nevertheless disturb extremely sensitive scientific experiments. Using gold, no less. This does not scale to a crapton of GPU waste heat.