Server farms are monsters that sometimes nest in very strange places.
Among other locations, they can be found beneath the ocean, in the desert, in the frozen north, in abandoned mines — and soon, perhaps… on the Moon!
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An American startup called Lonestar Data Holdings is planning to send the world's first lunar server farm to the Moon, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The target date for the mission is by the end of Q1 2025.
The servers will be powered by solar energy and will dissipate heat directly into outer space, thereby avoiding the environmental damage caused by conventional servers on Earth.
Several organizations have already signed on as customers, including the Florida state government and the band Imagine Dragons.
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In the near term, it's unlikely that server farms of this kind will serve as a replacement for conventional data centers on Earth.
The enormous costs of launch, the difficulty of routine maintenance, limited power availability, and low bandwidth all make the project impractical and inefficient.
Even so, the public relations value and media buzz appear to make the investment worthwhile for both sides.