Space Data Centers
The Vast Number of Terrestrial Data Centers required for our AI Future will Consume Too Many Irreplaceable Earth Resources
AI is adding to humankind’s already significant demand for electrical energy. AI requires data centers and the growth in data centers is increasing demands on our electrical grid which increases emissions. Excessive demand will slow the transition to energy sources that do not add to atmospheric carbon dioxide. US data center electricity demand could double by 2030.
Data centers support the servers, switches, and networks needed to provide the data communication, data processing, and data storage required by our increasingly digital economy. Data centers are energy-intensive, using large amounts of electricity to operate their data processing equipment and cooling systems. Construction of data centers requires manufactured material including cables, HVAC, lights, emergency power batteries and generators, servers, switches and other electronic devices.
A recent analysis showed that, by 2027, AI servers could use between 85 to 134 terawatt hours annually. This consumption is similar to the amount of electricity consumed by Argentina, or Netherlands, or Sweden each year. “Powering Intelligence: Analyzing Artificial Intelligence and Data Center Energy Consumption,” an analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) found that internet queries utilizing artificial intelligence require about ten times the amount of electricity used for traditional internet searches. They project that U.S. data centers will consume between 4.6% to 9.1% of all U.S. electricity generation by 2030.
According to Forbes, data centers currently use about 1% of the world’s electricity, but that number could double by 2026. Goldman Sachs predicts that data centers will account for 8% of the US’s power demand by 2030, up from about 3% today. The Guardian predicts that data centers could account for 3.2% of global carbon emissions by 2025, and eventually produce a level of emissions equal to that of the aviation industry.
Space Data Centers
There is an alternative to building more and more terrestrial data centers. Space Data Centers could be designed to use space resources to support their ongoing operation. Solar power could be used to generate electricity and the space environment could be used to provide thermal control. Space Data Centers could be located to allow signal propagation delays comparable to terrestrial locations.
Hosting data storage and processing facilities in outer space presents an opportunity for unlimited scalability. Space Data Centers will rely on solar power either directly or, during night (when shaded from sunlight), from batteries or from directed energy beams relayed from other satellites that have a view of the sun. Cooling will be managed by radiators emitting heat into the cold of space. Except for manufacturing and launch impacts, none of this energy consumption will have a negative impact on Earth ecosystems.
A feasibility study titled ASCEND was performed by Thales Alenia Space for the European Commission as part of Horizon Europe programs. The study objectives were to demonstrate the technical feasibility and the environmental benefits of deploying large capacity data centers in space. ASCEND examined the feasibility of building an orbiting hyper-structure of several thousands of tons deployed via hundreds of launches per year. Thales Alenia Space revealed results of the “ASCEND feasibility study on space data centers” in Cannes on June 27, 2024.
Technological advancements and reduced launch costs are crucial for Space Data Center viability. Reusable launch vehicles and carbon-neutral fuels will be needed to control overall cost and minimize terrestrial environmental impact.
Space is a big place, and location, velocity, and gravity must be used to our advantage. There are many location options for the placement of Space Data Centers.
- LEO (Low Earth Orbit) provides the lowest signal delay, but requires the most energy for maintaining orbit. LEO is vulnerable to atmospheric drag. The propagation delay for a radio signal from LEO to the Earth’s surface ranges from approximately .000533 seconds to .00667 seconds, depending on altitude.
- GEO (Geostationary Orbit) provides a constant view of a specific area on Earth and is ideal for regional coverage. The signal delay from GEO (35,786 Kilometers) is 0.11929 seconds.
- L5 (Lagrange Point 5) offers a stable orbit about 384,400 kilometers from Earth, increasing latency to about 1.28133 seconds.
- The Moon is about the same distance from Earth as L5 with the same signal delay. Locating on the surface of the Moon has the disadvantage of being at the bottom of a gravity well. It also has lunar dust and radiation challenges. On the positive side, a lunar data center would not require fuel or energy to maintain and stabilize the data center’s orbit. Additionally, on the Moon there is potential to mine lunar resources for data center components including water and radiation shielding.
Continued research and development are needed to determine the feasibility of each of these options. Each option has advantages and disadvantages based on the specific applications the data center supports. For example, if near-immediate response time is required, LEO is best because it is closest to the Earth surface. For long term data storage or extended calculations including inference, locations on the Moon might be adequate even though one-way signal propagation would exceed one second.
What are the advantages of locating data centers in space?
Once assembled and in orbit, Space Data Centers will use the virtually unlimited heating, cooling, and electricity generation available from solar radiation and radiant cooling (emitting heat into the cold of space).
The size and number of Space Data Centers will only be limited by the challenge of lifting material out of the Earth’s gravity well, assembling the data center, and then operating it. Once in space, there will be no limit the data center’s size or footprint.
Security from human threats will be improved over terrestrial alternatives because of the challenge of access. Non-state actors will be unable to physically attack these data centers except by laser, which should be relatively easy to defend against. Potential attacks from hostile nations are a possibility, and would require defense from a spacefaring host country like the United States or Europe (or Russia or China if you are on their team). Basing data centers in space can enhance data security by reducing the risk of physical attacks and earthly natural disasters such as fire, flood, or earthquakes.
For many countries, especially European countries, sovereignty of information and software is an important advantage of space-based data centers. By having data centers in space, European countries can reduce their reliance on foreign infrastructure and services. This can enhance a European country’s sovereignty by ensuring control over critical data and reducing the risk of data breaches or unauthorized access.
Another advantage of Space Data Centers is their global reach. Global coverage enables countries to access and process data from anywhere on Earth. This can facilitate international collaborations, improve data sharing, and support a perhaps smaller country’s interests on a global scale.
Space Data Centers also will demonstrate a country or company’s technological leadership. Investing in Space Data Centers can position a country or company as a leader in space technology and innovation. This can enhance a country’s sovereignty by fostering technological independence and attracting investment and talent.
Space Data Centers can offer redundancy and resilience in case of terrestrial infrastructure failures or disruptions. This ensures continuity of critical services and data availability for a country, company, consortium, or partnership.
What are the disadvantages of Space Data Centers?
Building Space Data Centers will require a large amount of capital for design, material, personnel, and launch costs. Transporting materials and personnel into space is expensive. The size of this one-time and ongoing expense restricts this option to a large country, a group of countries like the European Union, or to only the largest of companies probably organized as a partnership or consortium.
Being located in space, the data center will exist in a vacuum, and will be exposed to highly varying levels of radiation, micrometeoroids, and extreme temperatures. This will require robust shielding, thermal control, and other safety and mitigation measures.
Once in space, the data center will need to be maintained. There are extreme challenges and costs associated with repairs in space. If the data center is occupied by humans part or full time, it will require additional life support and safety systems.
Any Space Data Center will need to deal with atmospheric interference when communicating with Earth. In space, it will need to defend against or mitigate electromagnetic interference, solar flares, space junk, and collisions with naturally occurring space objects.
Steps to Get There
Design and planning for at least one Space Data Center has already begun. The Houston-based company Axiom Space is building a scalable commercial orbital data center to be located on their commercial space station — Axiom Station. This first effort may or may not succeed, but the European Union and probably other countries and consortiums are also in various stages of planning. With multiple efforts, the chances of one or more projects succeeding are increased.
With proper planning, development, and implementation, Space Data Centers will provide a promising alternative to support data storage and processing requirements while by replacing terrestrial data centers’ negative environmental footprint and energy consumption.
Related URLs
- CIO “Data Centers in Space” https://www.cio.com/article/1308658/data-centers-in-space.html
- “Are Space-Based Data Centers the Future or Science Fiction?”
21 Feb 2024 by Datacenters.com Colocation https://www.datacenters.com/news/are-space-based-data-centers-the-future-or-science-fiction - Symmetry 2020, 12(9), 1487 “Space Habitat Data Centers — For Future Computing” https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/12/9/1487
- February 2018IEEE Wireless Communications 25(1):26–31
25(1):26–31 “Envisioned Wireless Big Data Storage for Low-Earth-Orbit Satellite-Based Cloud” https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Huawei-Huang-4/publication/319702988_Envisioned_Wireless_Big_Data_Storage_for_Low-Earth-Orbit_Satellite-Based_Cloud/links/5af6b1b5a6fdcc0c030cccd1/Envisioned-Wireless-Big-Data-Storage-for-Low-Earth-Orbit-Satellite-Based-Cloud.pdf - “Space: The final data center frontier — Project Ascend and the EU’s dreams of data centers in space” December 25, 2023
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/space-the-final-data-center-frontier/
