Just read a comment about exactly this a few days ago. Anyone working on space components know that a very hat problem to work on is how to keep things cool because, well - having the fucking sun shine on things most of the time directly without the ozone layer and air to dissipate heat in and way does make things go hot.

Also, you forgot a very important thing a data center needs: people that work there. That is one of the reasons we currently build data centers so close to urban sprawls in Arizona instead of somewhere in the middle of Alaska or in polar regions. There must be personnel working onsite all the time.

Also it will need repairs. And probably more often than not due to the radiation.

It's funny to me because the moon would be a much better choice, if latency wasn't an issue. Don't get me wrong, if your aim is uptime, reliability and ease of upgrades/use then terrestrial based is your only option.

But if your goal was off Earth, the moon has a number of advantages that free floating in orbit lacks. You can place the servers themselves underground in lavatubes or excavated caverns as well as install heat-sinks (or even seal a cavern, pressurize it and use what ever gaseous medium for extra heat capacity and thermal transfer) then place a series of solar on the surface with battery support (remembering that lunar nights are 2 weeks long) to generate all your power needs, as well as take advantage of the moon's tidally locked nature to have your transmission and receivers always pointed at the Earth, or relay satellites in orbit.

Such a project could coincide with NASA or other agencies or enterprises looking to establish settlements on the moon for research or mining purposes, so you could have short or long term settlements with technicians on hand to troubleshoot any problems that arise or even get semi regular (every 18-24 months) deliveries of components for repairs and upgrades for your system, something that long term would be a lot simpler logistically and more stable than attempting a satellite or constellation of satellites any Earth orbit.

The plan is nonsensical for a number of reasons, namely the cost and long term dedication, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than trying to put an energy intensive project in orbit and hope the lowest bidder parts last more than 6 months.

Well, you're thinking about the right things for sure! Power, cooling, Internet connection, all super important.

But as it turns out, terrestrial solar panels are actually heavier than space solar panels, like a lot heavier. Shielding against radiation is actually less of a challenge than shielding against weather and acorns. The ISS updated it's solar array a while back and its new ones were deployed by rolling them out, they were a thin enough film to actually roll up for launch and then roll out once attached to the ISS.

Also, these solar panels won't have blackouts. With a sun synchronous orbit, these panels simply won't be in shadow basically ever. The one exception would be during solar eclipses.

As for cooling, you do probably need radiators with active cooling systems. Generally you need radiator panels at a ratio of about 1/5 of the area of your solar panels, but this can vary with different designs. But that's a linear relationship, cooling doesn't become unfeasible at some point it just remains a design concern. The more power you generate, the more radiators you need. It's just part of the cost of power and it scales linearly with the area of your solar array.

People forget that black body radiation is to the 4th power of the temperature difference. I assure you if your server cluster is at 1000 Kelvin cooling will be the least of your worries