Data centers crush the planet. Can space save us?

Companies building frantically and praise data centers are well aware that they contract networks, leading emissions and whips. The electricity demand for AI data centers in particular could increase up to 165% by 2030. More than half of food energy These tentacular installations comes from fossil fuels, threatening to reverse progress towards the fight against the climate crisis.

Some of the biggest names in artificial intelligence say they have a solution: simply stick these clusters of colossal computers in space. Openai CEO Sam Altman told Manosphere Podcaster Theo vonn that he considered a massive expansion of inevitable data centers. “I guess many people are covered in data centers over time,” he said. (It is not, in fact, inevitable, but the result of unfathomable wealthy companies that choose to invest unfathomable money. Altman has hypothesized that it would literally put billions of dollars, and Openai is part of the consortium behind the Stargate project of $ 500 billion.)

Altman, however, is aware that some people may not like this. “I spoke with environmentalists,” he said. Then he proposed a suggestion. “Maybe we put (data centers) in space,” he said. “I would like to have, like, more concrete answers for you, but as, we fall through it.”

From now on, the idea of ​​launching data centers, the most important of which can cover more than a million square feet, in orbit may seem impractical. But Altman is not the only one to consider it. Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt also bet on the idea.

Altman proposed to create a dyson sphere of data centers around the sun, referring to a hypothetical megastructure built around a star to capture a large part of its energy. The rather obvious disadvantage is that the building that it would probably require more resources than to exist on earth and could make the planet uninhabitable. But slightly more realistic plans are close to reality. Startups like Starcloud, Axiom and Lonestar Data Systems have increased millions to develop them.

In the United States, there are at least 5,400 data centers, ranging from micro-tail to the “hyperscalers” of a thousand server, and the number increases rapidly. These installations should consume up to 12% of the country’s electricity by 2028. Placing them in space can therefore look like a panacea: solving the energy consumption problem with solar energy 24/7 and freeing communities from the burden of air, noise and water.

There is a real science behind it. Ali Hajimiri, an electrician engineer and professor at the Caltech’s Space Power Project, asked for a patent for a “massively parallel calculation system in space” – as in a data center – in 2016. Since then, the launch costs have dropped (about $ 1,500 per kilogram, by an estimate), and the solar panels have become heavier and more efficient. Hajimiri and his colleagues recently proposed a solar energy system based on light space which could produce electricity at 10 hundred per kilowatt-hour, much cheaper on a large scale than comparable systems here on earth.

Such technology could theoretically fuel orbital data centers like those who imagine Altman, although Hajimiri still does not know when they could be built in the type of business on a scale like Openai requires. “I never want to say that something cannot be done,” he said. “But there are challenges associated with it.”

On the one hand, the systems he imagines processing the data relatively slowly compared to those of Terra Firma. They would be constantly bombed by radiation, and “obsolescence would be a problem” because making repairs or improvements would be difficult. Hajimiri thinks that space data centers could one day be a viable solution, but he hesitates to say when this day could happen. “It would certainly be doable in a few years,” he said. “The question is how effective they would be and how profitable they would become.”

The idea of ​​simply putting data centers in orbit is not limited to the deactivated reflections of technicians or the deeper thoughts of academics. Even certain elected officials in cities where companies like Amazon hope to build data centers raise the point. Tucson, Arizona, the member of the Nikki Lee council explained poetic on their potential during a hearing in August, in which the council voted unanimously a data center proposed in their city.

“Many people say that data centers do not belong to the desert,” said Lee. But “if it is really a national priority”, then the emphasis must be put on “putting the dollars of research and federal development in the data centers which will exist in space. And it may seem crazy to everyone and a little science fiction, but it happens. ”

It’s true, but it happens on an experimental scale, not industrial. A startup called Starcloud hoped to launch a satellite the size of a refrigerator housing some Nvidia chips in August, but the launch date was postponed. Lonestar Data Systems won a miniature data center, carrying valuable information like an imagine dragons song, on the moon a few months ago, although the landing has renounced and died in the attempt. Other launches are scheduled for the coming months. But it is “very difficult to predict how fast this idea will become economically feasible,” said Matthew Weinzierl, economist at Harvard University who studies market forces in space. “Spatial data centers may well have niche uses, for example for the processing of space-based data and the supply of national security capacity,” he said. “To be a significant rival for land centers, however, they will have to compete on the costs and quality of service like anything else.”

For the moment, it is much more expensive to put a data center in space than to put one, for example, of Virginia’s Data Center Valley, where the demand for energy could double in the next decade if it is not regulated. And as long as staying on Earth remains cheaper, companies motivated by profit will promote the expansion of the land data center.

However, there is a factor that could encourage Openai and others to look at the heavens: there is not much regulation up there. The construction of data centers on Earth requires obtaining municipal permits, and companies can be blocked by local governments whose residents fear that the development of the data center can siphon their water, increase their electricity bills or overheat their planet. In space, there are no neighbors to complain, said Michelle Hanlon, political scientist and lawyer who runs the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi. “If you are an American company that seeks to put data centers in space, then the earliest will be best, before Congress is like:” Oh, we must regulate this. “”

This article was initially published in Grist AT is an independent non -profit media organization dedicated to telling stories of climatic solutions and a just future. Learn more about Grist.org.