vrighter comments on An in-space construction firm says it can help build massive data centers in orbit

and forget about running 4nm chips in space. shit has to be radiation hardened, which means bigger process nodes and higher energy cost, and lower speed

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[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Another thing they probably didn't think of. Nobody's run chips in space before.

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[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

they did think of it. lots of people have. I just mentioned what was required. Rad hardened processors are usually 10 to 20 times slower than what we have on the surface

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[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 point 1 year ago

So don't use rad-hardened processors, put them in a radiation vault instead. Those become more mass-efficient the more hardware you're putting inside them.

Really, I assure you the people proposing these things have put more thought and expertise into it than a bunch of random Fediverse commentators.

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[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

for starters, at the loads they're running at, they have literally hundreds of gpu failures a day. How do you propose doing that in space?

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[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io -2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Include spares.

I hope they're reading this thread and taking notes, they probably didn't think of that.

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[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

and the infrastructure and robotics to replace them, of course.

Assuming 200 nvidia H100 failures a day (conservativo, reality is worse) that's an extra ~340kg of weight you'd need to launch per day. Which is an extra 120 tons yearly.

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[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

So, one Starship launch per year. Doesn't sound like a problem.

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[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

at least two, you can't stuff a rocket full of just gpus, you need something to actually dock and deliver the payload in space. So you need to launch at least 2 rockets (in a non-reusable configuration, so you need to pay for the whole rocket and the launch) to ship a bunch of gpus that are, at best, only 10% as fast as usual.

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[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 point 1 year ago

Okay, two then. It's still cheap.