Submitted 2 days ago by sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al to technology@beehaw.org
https://www.theverge.com/news/669157/china-begins-assembling-its-supercomputer-in-space
I thought this was going to be unviabl because cooling megawatts of power passively by radiation is hard? That’s been overcome somehow then? The article just says “Orbital data centres can use solar power and radiate their heat to space”.
I did wonder in the past about using a large heat pump to make the heat fins much hotter, which should accelerate cooling. But just an armchair thought. Any info on how this is/will be cooled?
I would imagine some sort of heat pump is being used to transfer the heat from the electronics to the radiators.
Fun fact, this isn’t all that effective because of the compressor heat/inefficiency. You get some benefit, but you also introduce moving parts and complexity.
Seems like ocean supercomputers would be more viable…
These are likely only using a few kilowatts, calling them data centers or super computers is an absurd hyperbole.
If you have a megawatt solar array, you can also afford a megawatt cooling array. The size is comparable.
Stellaris popup ass title lol
Hard reboots/power cycling are gonna be a real pain in the ass. I suspect that there’s gonna be significant downtimes until they switch from Windows to Linux and then figure out their super space drivers. Considering the millions it costs to launch someone into space, the IT astronaut who has to unplug this and plug it back in is going to be the most expensive tech support/hour ever.
Which means either the United States has or will be doing this, and this offers humanity no comfort. Exponential feedback loops on a road to nowhere on tracks coming to an end. There is no reason to be hopeful. Every little discovery, every little innovation all goes to the military industrial complex of all countries just to slaughter poor people. China is a capitalist country, Russia is a capitalist country, Iran is a capitalist country, Israel is a capitalist country, the United States is a capitalist country, Europe is full of capitalist countries. No War but the Class War.
What could go wrong?
Literally everything
Nah, as long as it has Quantum and AI it’ll be fine
Because electronics on the ground didn’t have a big enough environmental footprint, let’s emit co2 and pollutants to have some more in space? All just because checks notes no real useful reason?
A solar-powered computer in space could recoup the CO2 cost of its launch fuel over its lifecycle (say 10 years?) when compared to coal-fueled electricity on the ground. After that it’s free. Of course, you’d benefit more by filling up every available spot on the ground with solar arrays first! But you will eventually run out, or you might not want to do that.
i highly doubt 10 years is even remotely close to breaking even on a rocket launch.
It eliminates the need for a lot of back and forth communication if you need to calculate stuff in space. Maybe scanning satelite images for example. And it shaves off valuable seconds if you - say - want to launch something from orbit to Earth. Most air defense mechanisms are not all that effective against stuff that comes straight down at a high speed and the idea of orbital weapons has been circulating for a while now (if not realised without public knowledge).
Ah right, I momentarily forgot about the ruling class’s passion for launching stuff that kills people.
Ty for the reminder, I guess this idea of computers up there makes more sense now.
That is certainly a description…
On a routine debris collection run, Yuri Mihairokov finds a compass, the only keepsake of his deceased wife, and is rescued by Hachirota “Hachimaki” Hoshino. Pilot Fee Carmichael stops the terrorist plan by ramming the Toy Box into the satellite and knocking it off course, sacrificing the Toy Box in the process.
What terrorist plot? What does that have to do with the compass?
All I can say is that the Wiki article is not the show or the manga.
I forgot that anime existed
The beginnings of the Matrioshka Brain
not even a little, but matrioshka brains are cool
“Professor Klaus, no! The results have not been confirmed!”
Skynet is Made in China. That figures.
megopie@beehaw.org 1 day ago
it seems a bit disingenuous to call these “data centers in space”
30 terabytes of storage across 12 satellites? So 2.5 TB each and 744 tops (which is like, a modern mid range graphics card for a PC). Like that just sound like they’re launching a gaming PC in to orbit, not a datacenter.
The idea of processing more data on the satellite rather than processing it on the ground is interesting and neat, but representing these as anything more than that is… weird.
xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
due to cosmic radiation, computers in space run in triplicates…. so everything is times 3….
but yes, it’s a lie.
also, the definition of supercomputer is a bit muddy. my phone is a supercomputer by most standards (obsolete standards).
Comment105@lemm.ee 13 hours ago
So the journalist Wes Davis is a liar and the Verge is a slop factory run by idiots.
megopie@beehaw.org 1 day ago
Judging by the fact these are launching on long march 20s. It’s probably not going beyond LEO, so it doesn’t need proper deep space hardening like the RAD750 or the like.
It’s probably closer to off the shelf parts like what’s used on the ISS.
GlassHalfHopeful@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
12 of 2800 planned have been launched.
TehPers@beehaw.org 1 day ago
I have a server at home built from old parts and some refurbished drives with nearly that much storage. 2800 satellites like this would come out to around 230 of my servers, or ~7PB.
A single 2U server with 12 drives, each with 24TB storage, can hold 288TB. It would take ~24 of those to get to 7PB, which is a lot of servers, but not so many that someone with quite a lot of savings couldn’t afford it.
Also, the servers on the ground can be cooled by, idk, air if needed. Or water. Or I guess liquid nitrogen if you want. Point is there’s an atmosphere for the heat to dissipate to, unlike space.
megopie@beehaw.org 1 day ago
That’s still not very much compared to most data centers. Like, 7000 terabytes is a lot of storage for one person, but it barely even registers compared to most modern data centers.
Also, 7000 desktops networked together isn’t really a super computer or a data center.
such a network is interesting as a scientific tool for gathering and processing data, certainly, but not a data-center and not a super computer.