this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2026
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Bad press doesn't mean they can start losing even more money on space data centers (which are going to be incredibly inefficient and costly). They already do not make a profit, they're all deep in the red.
Drag is not the only problem (even though these would definitely be LEO, it is just even more expensive to not have them in LEO and it increases latency), nor are bit flips. The biggest issue will continue to be heat. If you haven't been to a data center before, you may be surprised at how much heat they generate. I've only been to non-LLM data centers, and the heat in the warm aisles was unbearable.
And that's without the sun heating the exterior to incredible amounts. You cannot use contact to dump heat into space.
You might also be surprised at how much e-waste data centers generate, especially LLM-geared data centers. They obliterate hardware, even with optimal cooling, and that hardware requires constant replacement. How are they going to manage that?
Also, unless they use nuclear (which would drastically increase costs and add heat) they're going to need gigantic solar arrays, much bigger than the IIS' array.