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First, you have to determine what is a minimally-viable node in each context. SpaceX is proposing essentially a single-rack node with 120KW power at a mass of about 2 tons. Let's assume that the same Nvidia racks would be used in an oceanic platform, so we can disregard the silicon costs. Starlink satellites are constructed at scale at a cost of about $1M/ton, so a reasonable cost estimate for Starmind satellites is about about $2M per satellite. Add $200K in launch costs and we're about $2.5M/node up front, with ~0 ongoing costs.
If we assume that solar arrays are impractical for oceanic data processing, the minimum viable node would have to be some kind of hull with active station-keeping and enough fuel storage to fuel a diesel generator and station-keeping for extended periods between refueling (30 days?). It starts getting sketchy here, but working with requirements of about 25 tons fuel capacity, it seems like you're looking at a 30-40 meter DP1 vessel. I couldn't find costs for new construction, but listings for similar class vessels decades old are around $3M (e.g., https://maritimesales.com/DAB17.htm), so that seems like a reasonable conservative estimate. And this the up-front cost only. Assuming it's autonomous, it will still need monthly fuel deliveries, regular PMCS and overhauls on engines, gensets, and thrusters, other seaworthiness maintenance like painting, cleaning, and lubrication, and you can expect substantial wear and tear and damage from environmental forces. Fuel replenishment alone is going to be at least $30K/month. And this is all for a single Nvidia rack!
Now of course as you start scaling up, the economics shift, but my point was that one of the advantages of orbital deployment is the ability to scale node sizes down.
If you're scaling things down to a single rack, then for $2.5 million I'll gladly stick it in my basement (which has gig fiber internet, I'll upgrade to the 2.5 gig plan if they'd prefer for that kind of money) and handle all maintenance for them.
If the point of space datacenters is being able to do them at a very small scale, there are a million better and cheaper options that don't run into the same sort of political/NIMBY resistance that big datacenters have. There's plenty of vacant office buildings with good internet and electrical hookups that would be far cheaper and easier to maintain than chucking a rack into orbit.
The economics of this literally make no sense, there's no point in doing this stuff at a small scale because you lose all the benefits of economies of scale.
I'm skeptical you have 120 KW service to your house
True, I probably only get about 50. I'll take a mere $1 million to host a third of a rack instead, after all scaling these things down doesn't matter ;)
Would fit better under my basement stairs at that size anyway.
Also, I don't think your calculations for Starmind accounted for the solar panels, radiators, etc. which are far more than a normal Starlink satellite would need.
Assuming the minimum viable product can even scale that small, what you're describing is not a lot different than what cryptominers were doing at home for a while, and their activities were often extremely unpopular with their neighbors. I'm curious how you plan to dissipate 50 KW of heat from under your basement stairs without annoying your neighbors. Not to mention, the $7.5K/month power/fiber bill takes a pretty big bite out of that after a 5 year operation cycle. After 10 years, you're probably not breaking even.
Interesting concept though: assuming you want to add, say, 2GW of inference capacity, that would be something like 40,000 1/3-size racks. Could you spread that out around the country enough that the increased load could be absorbed by the already-present electrical grid and generation capacity? The national average looks to be around 500 GW, so this seems plausible. I suspect the challenge would be getting people to sign up for having the noise in their homes.
Datacenter hardware lifecycles are usually 3 to 5 years so they can just give me another million and a replacement third of a rack every 3 years.
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