Daily Junction Play
651watching now
Real Engineering 27 Jun 2026 30 here now

The Space Data Centers Situation is Insane

Subscribe to IEEE Spectrum Magazine and get 20% off: https://spectrum.ieee.org/realengineeringsummer

Read IEEE Spectrum's article on orbital data centers by Andrew Cavalier: https://spectrum.ieee.org

For You

Because of what you watch

Comments (20)

Daily Junction discussion mixed with clearly attributed comments from the original video provider.

Join in — free. Comments on Daily Junction are for members, so real names stay rare and bots stay out.

One field. We email you a 6-digit code — no password needed. Your comment is kept while you do it.

Under 13? You’ll need a parent’s OK first — it takes them one click.

@
To make this even funnier:
All the LLMs down here on Earth operate at loss. The cheap simple engineering projects cooled by water and with no launch costs and no space related extra challenges, those ones, already cost about a magnitude more to build and run than the revenues from paying end users.
@
@zodder13 From YouTube ↗ 30 Jun 2026 249
These people have never actually seen a server room for real
@
Thank you for being willing to call out slop. Particularly using engineering and logic, not insults or rage baits
@
Nice of IEEE Spectrum to give a boost to a smaller creator such as Real Engineering
@
Yes, yes - data centers in space would be the largest engineering feat in human history - and maybe they would break down within days - but you're forgetting the prize that awaits us at the top of this mountain: being able to summarize emails even quicklier 😌
@
I might have to get that IEEE Magazine subscription. The men yearn for beautiful, intentional STEM print media
@
“in space no one can hear your cooling problem” is doing a lot of work here
@
@not_a_sp00k From YouTube ↗ 30 Jun 2026 174
I have never heard real engineering get spicy like this before.
@
@KnowArt From YouTube ↗ 30 Jun 2026 788
dream sponsor
@
@miket591 From YouTube ↗ 30 Jun 2026 281
Imagine instaling one of these, then you get a crowdstrike update and convert your station into an expesive asteroid.
@
Advertisement from 2046: "Has an orbital data center fallen on you or your loved ones? If so you may be entitled to compensation from a class action lawsuit, but only if you call now!"
@
@smuy3782 From YouTube ↗ 30 Jun 2026 330
Don't let physics and logic get in the way of a funding round.
@
Woops didn’t mean to have the comments turned off 😂
@
7:59 "...being gassed up by an overly agreeable AI..." Too true!
@
@13:10 "Reality seems to have become less valuable in the last few years."

So true.
@
@weird_0432 From YouTube ↗ 30 Jun 2026 1700
This white paper sounds like what my students turn in when they don't think I'm reading their homework
@
@username65585 From YouTube ↗ 30 Jun 2026 2000
Don’t be too hard on Claude. It worked very hard for several seconds on that business plan.
@
@rustoo3823 From YouTube ↗ 30 Jun 2026 436
1:17 "In space, no one can hear you protest" 😂
@
Thank you for not turning this channel into a private equity owned, AI-powered slop content factory.
@
@lxndr1298 From YouTube ↗ 30 Jun 2026 4000
corporations in 2003: "you can't pirate our stuff with your potatoes! straight to jail!"
corporations in 2026: "we need to turn the entire solar system into a plagiarism machine"