Editor's note: This is the first of three feature articles Ars is publishing to explore the financial, technical, and competitive dimensions of orbital data centers. Although the idea of putting data ...

Data centers are becoming huge parts of our digital lives, but they come with a lot of hidden problems. We used to think of ...

Communities are protesting new data centers due to environmental impacts and rising utility costs. Data centers require significant amounts of electricity and water, with consumption expected to grow.