Musk responds to doubts about heat dissipation for space AI data centers: aluminum radiators facing away from the sun can reach about 1,300 W/m²

Musk Responds to Doubts About Cooling Space AI Data Centers: Can Easily Dissipate About 1,300 Watts per Square Meter

IT Home Download the App for Exclusive Early Access November 4, 2026, 12:30:31 From Shandong Updated November 4, 2026, 13:02:52

IT Home, November 4 — The tech media outlet Wccftech published a blog post yesterday (November 3) reporting that, in response to the controversy over cooling space AI data centers, the world's richest person, Elon Musk, said that an aluminum radiator facing away from the sun can achieve a thermal radiation power of about 1,300 watts per square meter.

Citing the blog post, IT Home explains that this cooling controversy centers on a seemingly counterintuitive question: space is very cold, so why is it still difficult to cool equipment down? Some commenters pointed out that the vacuum environment lacks air convection, and equipment must mainly rely on thermal radiation to shed heat, and therefore questioned the feasibility of orbital data centers.

In an interview with The Indian Express in February this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that "under the current circumstances, the idea of putting data centers in space is absurd." But he believes that in the long run, deploying AI computing power in space is worthwhile, adding: "Within this decade (by 2030), orbital data centers will not be used on a large scale, but they will become possible in the future."

Jan Broersen (@broudsov), a professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, posted on X on November 2, arguing: "Vacuum is the best insulation environment. In space, heat can only be dissipated by radiation. A space data center is almost impossible to build (of course, we certainly won't see it in our lifetime)."

In response, Musk said that an aluminum radiator facing away from the sun can achieve a thermal radiation power of about 1,300 watts per square meter; the orientation and material of the radiator are key, and if it faces away from the sun and toward deep space, the heat input from solar irradiation can be reduced.

According to Musk, one can assume that an electric heater operates continuously at 1,300 watts; a 1-square-meter radiator would then need to continuously expel the equivalent of the heat it generates. The difference is that an electric heater releases heat in a room, while a satellite radiator expels heat outward by means of thermal radiation. Over one continuous hour, it expels the heat corresponding to about 1.3 kWh of electricity: converted at 1,300 watts, a 1-square-meter radiator operating for 1 hour can expel about 1.3 kWh of heat.

However, the media outlet pointed out that 1,300 watts per square meter is still a performance claim put forward by Musk, and the report did not provide on-orbit measured results. Radiative heat dissipation capability is also related to factors such as surface temperature, emissivity, and area, and cooling effectiveness cannot be judged merely on the basis that deep space is cold.

The power density of solar panels is about 250 W/m², so their area should be about 5 times that of the radiator. Most of a satellite's mass comes from its solar panels.

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