this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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410
Elon Musk Is Rolling xAI Into SpaceX—Creating the World’s Most Valuable Private Company (www.wired.com)
submitted 2 days ago by some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
203 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

In a blog post, Musk said the acquisition was warranted because global electricity demand for AI cannot be met with “terrestrial solutions,” and Silicon Valley will soon need to build data centers in space to power its AI ambitions.

This dumb fuck. Unfortunately, his boosters will be all-in on this messaging. Whatever.

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[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

No cooling capacity? Isn't it the extreme opposite?

[–] ebc@lemmy.ca 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No, it's pretty hard to get rid of heat in space, vacuum is a very good insulator. The only way is radiation.

[–] Chronographs@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No, space isn’t cold it’s empty. You need something to conduct away the heat, otherwise all you can do is passively radiate it

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Fascinating. Will look more into it to understand.

[–] Dultas@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I think Scott Manly might have had a video on it (data enter in space) recently. I saw it on a feed but haven't watched it. I'm sure he would mention the issues with heat removal.

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

https://youtu.be/DCto6UkBJoI

TLDW: cooling's fine if you use starlink V2 size and power (which is not very suitable for AI 'datacentre' use) because it works already.

This is not about a few huge datacentres, it's about a million small ones. There’s 99 problems with this (see Kessler syndrome !, radiation, …), cooling isn’t (much of) one.

Doesn't matter anyway, it just has to be vaguely plausible for a stock IPO pump (and dump) scheme while sweeping all that xAI debt under the rug.

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

https://youtu.be/d-YcVLq98Ew&t=8m24s

Doesn't say why a vacuum cannot conduct heat though, but it makes sense to me now anyhow. Heat is vibrating molecules so to mitigate the vibration you need adjacent molecules which aren't vibrating as much.

[–] jagermo@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

Read the traveller sourcebooks, they especially for the ship designs. Good stuff

[–] Herr_S_aus_H@lemmy.zip -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Welcome to middle school physics.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago

Don't be a dick. Not everyone remembers everything they did in middle school.