Cooling a data centre on Earth can consume 10 to 30 per cent of its energy budget and millions of litres of water; in orbit, there is no air, no cooling towers, and no river to dump heat into — only vast radiator panels bleeding waste heat away as infrared light into the blackness of space

Keeping a data centre cool on Earth is a surprisingly large part of the job. Cooling can swallow anywhere from a tenth to a third of a facility’s entire energy budget, and the thirstiest sites drink millions of litres of water to do it. Move that data centre into orbit and the whole approach collapses. [...] The post Cooling a data centre on Earth can consume 10 to 30 per cent of its energy budget and millions of litres of water; in orbit, there is no air, no cooling towers, and no river to dump