Clean solar power. No land. No grid constraints. Just move everything into orbit and let the AI boom rip. Sounds perfect, until you actually run the numbers.
Somewhere between a TED talk and a venture capital pitch deck, the idea crystallized: why struggle to power data centers on Earth when space offers essentially unlimited solar energy, zero weather interruptions, and no neighborhood to complain about the noise? With AI compute demand doubling roughly every eighteen months and terrestrial power grids already groaning under the load, the concept of orbital data centers has moved from science fiction into serious engineering discussions, and, in some cases, into regulatory filings.
But here is the thing about seductive premises: they tend to collapse under scrutiny. Not always dramatically. Sometimes they just quietly suffocate beneath the weight of their own physics.
So let us do what the headline promises. Let us do the math.
Continue reading Do the Math: Orbital Data Centers