As world demand for computing continues to blow up, the carbon footprint of information facilities is a rising concern. A brand new research outlines how internet hosting these services in area may assist slash the sector’s emissions.
Information facilities require huge quantities of energy and water to function and funky the hundreds of thousands of chips housed inside them. Present estimates from the Worldwide Power Company peg their electrical energy consumption at round 415 terawatt hours globally, roughly 1.5 % of complete consumption in 2024. And the Environmental and Power Examine Institute says that enormous knowledge facilities can use as a lot as 5 million gallons per day for cooling.
With demand for computing sources rising by the day, specifically for the reason that speedy adoption of resource-guzzling generative AI throughout the financial system, this threatens to develop into an unsustainable burden on the planet.
However a brand new paper in Nature Electronics by scientists at Nanyang Technological College in Singapore means that internet hosting knowledge facilities in area may present a possible resolution. By counting on the plentiful photo voltaic power out there in orbit and releasing waste warmth into the chilly vacuum of area, these services may, in precept, develop into carbon impartial.
“House gives a real sustainable surroundings for computing,” Wen Yonggang, lead creator of the research, stated in a press launch. “By harnessing the solar’s power and the chilly vacuum of area, orbital knowledge facilities may rework world computing.”
To validate their proposal, the researchers used digital-twin simulations of orbital computing techniques to mannequin how they’d generate energy, handle warmth, and preserve connectivity. The group investigated two potential architectures: one designed to scale back the footprint of information collected by satellites themselves and one other that may obtain knowledge from Earth for processing.
The primary mannequin would contain integrating knowledge processing capabilities into satellites outfitted with sensors—for instance, cameras for imaging the Earth. This may make it doable to hold out costly computations on the info on board earlier than transmitting simply the outcomes again to the bottom, somewhat than processing the uncooked knowledge in terrestrial knowledge facilities.
The opposite strategy includes a constellation of satellites outfitted with full servers that would obtain knowledge from Earth and coordinate to hold out complicated computing duties like coaching AI fashions or working massive simulations. The researchers be aware that this sort of distributed knowledge heart structure—versus assembling a big, monolithic knowledge heart in orbit—is technologically possible with at present’s satellite tv for pc and computing applied sciences.
The group’s evaluation means that the appreciable carbon footprint of launching {hardware} into area could possibly be offset inside 5 years of operation, after which the services may run indefinitely on renewable power.
Vital technical and logistical hurdles stay. Laptop chips are weak to radiation, an ever-present hazard in area, which might necessitate using specialised radiation-hardened processors. Lengthy-term upkeep of the services would additionally require in-orbit servicing applied sciences that don’t but exist. And as computing applied sciences quickly enhance, chips depreciate in just some years. Protecting orbital knowledge facilities stocked with the newest and best could possibly be pricey.
However the NTU group isn’t the primary to drift the concept of shifting computing services into area. Final 12 months, French protection and aerospace large Thales revealed a research exploring the feasibility of the concept. And subsequent month, the startup Starcloud will launch a satellite tv for pc carrying an Nvidia H100 GPU as a primary step in the direction of making a community of orbital knowledge facilities.
Whereas realizing the imaginative and prescient is prone to require technical breakthroughs and an enormous quantity of funding, one resolution to computing’s ever rising carbon footprint could also be above our heads.
