This is just what an orbital data center needs

[John Clark]

Just last week IBM announced they had made an experimental chip that contains about 6000 transistors and it used molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) instead of silicon. It formed a two-dimensional semiconductor only a single molecule thick, so they can be stacked on top of each other. IBM said the molybdenum disulfide chip was 50% faster than a silicon chip while using 70% less electrical energy, but most important of all it can operate at much higher temperatures. A silicon chip needs to be below 80°C ( 353 K), a molybdenum disulfide chip needs to be below 500°C (773 K).  

The area a space radiator needs to be to get rid of a given amount of heat energy is inversely proportional to the temperature raised to the fourth power. (353/773)^4= 0.044;  so if an orbital data center used molybdenum disulfide instead of silicon then its heat radiation panels would only need to have 4.4% of the area that a data center using silicon would need. And molybdenum disulfide is less vulnerable to cosmic radiation than silicon is. I think all this makes the idea of orbital data centers much more practical. Step one, an orbital data center. Step two, a Dyson swarm. 

Silicon Is Over. Here's What's Next

John K Clark    See what's on my list at  Extropolis

[Jay Lewis]

4%!  Will it melt rest of the system?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 1:37 PM Jay Lewis <jle...@marginalx.com> wrote:

4%!  Will it melt rest of the system?

NO.

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[Tim Cash]

Forget the system!  Will it melt me, Mr. AI Chip inspector!!!!!  I ignore statements like this one because I have zero faith in any all AI afficiandos.  Pure BS it is!

Tim Cash

cash...@gmail.com

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[Keith Henson]

I find AIs to be very useful. You do have to be careful because they lack common sense. I have been using them on the SolarSyngas project. The last thing I had one do was to create an Excel sheet giving the temperature profile and gas velocity from the bottom up to the top of the 35 meters of the gasifier shaft. The bottom starts at 1500 deg C, and the top is around 200 C. The gas is cooled by the incoming unsorted solid waste that also collects much of the biotar and recycles it.

This project is kind of in competition with power satellites because it makes steady power out of intermittent renewables, such as solar and wind. It is effectively a giant, long-term battery that can also be tapped for making diesel and jet fuel.

Huge project. The gasifier design draws 160 MW and processes 2500 tons per day. LA will need 30 of them to process all the trash and more if we want to feed them with harvested brush to hold down the fire dangers. The AIs' guess each gasifier will cost between 250 and 300 million. But it looks like the project will turn a profit while drawing down CO2.

Keith

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[Jay Lewis]

On Friday, July 17, 2026 at 1:58:51 PM UTC-7 hkeith...@gmail.com wrote:

I find AIs to be very useful. You do have to be careful because they lack common sense. I have been using them on the SolarSyngas project. The last thing I had one do was to create an Excel sheet giving the temperature profile and gas velocity from the bottom up to the top of the 35 meters of the gasifier shaft. The bottom starts at 1500 deg C, and the top is around 200 C. The gas is cooled by the incoming unsorted solid waste that also collects much of the biotar and recycles it.

A year ago I couldn't get any AI to handle spreadhseets so just used code for everything since they did a better job of that.  Oddly python code could read excel in , do anything, then output back to excel without issues.  Yet even a couplf of spreadheet dedicated AI couldn't handle excel or sheets directly. I havn't tried since and may abandon excel.  

Huge project. The gasifier design draws 160 MW and processes 2500 tons per day. LA will need 30 of them to process all the trash and more if we want to feed them with harvested brush to hold down the fire dangers. The AIs' guess each gasifier will cost between 250 and 300 million. But it looks like the project will turn a profit while drawing down CO2.

LA isn't the only one!  The US alone has about 70,000 Wildfiers a year.  Turning some of that underbrush into diesel is interesting.  

https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics/wildfires

[Citation found by perplexity ai on its first try without waiting through a dozen of advertising, SEO, and almost good links from google]

Jay