Comment Re: If they are thermally efficient enough (Score 1) 118
A good rule of thumb is 3m^2 of radiative area per kW,
Where did you get that from?
According to Stefan-Boltzmann , power is proportional to the 4th power of temperature, so temp matters very much. Even at 50C, you get 550W/m^2 radiation per side. That leaves a big margin for temp gradient from panel to GPU core. So I assume you numbers must be single sided, and based on a lower temperature?
Even so, that is less than the area of solar panels needed to generate the power. Total mass works out slightly more. The economics of space-based AI servers compared to earthly is dubious, especially as battery storage continues to drop in price.
But why are some people focussing on claiming some fundamental physics limit in cooling? Aside from the usual