Technology, Connected - Why Starcloud Wants To Put Data Centers In Space

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Philip Johnston is CEO of Starcloud. They build data centers in space. Their first satellite just launched on SpaceX Falcon 9. You can track it orbiting Earth right now.This short covers humanoid robots, data centers in orbit, and whether the future includes dancing machines.We talk about:- Why Philip predicts 5 billion humanoids by 2035- What humanoid robots will actually do (not dance—work)- How space-based data centers solve Earth's power crisis- Why orbit is better for computing than ground (cooling, energy, latency for some tasks)- The Starcloud satellite currently in orbit (track it yourself)- Whether robots need to be humanoid at all (or if we're copying ourselves for ego)Philip's thesis: Humanoids scale faster than anyone expects. Not because they're better than specialized robots—but because they navigate human infrastructure without redesigning the world.The question: Do we need 5 billion humanoids? Or do we just think we do because they look like us?This is a short from the full conversation. Listen to the complete episode for more on space infrastructure, orbital manufacturing, and the future Philip's building.---Guest: Philip Johnston, CEO, StarcloudTopics: Humanoid robots, space data centers, satellites, SpaceX, infrastructure, robotics, orbital computingStatus: Starcloud satellite currently in orbitFormat: Short episode | Full version available--Other ways to connect with us:⁠Listen to every podcast⁠Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠Follow us on ⁠X⁠Follow Mark on ⁠LinkedIn⁠Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠Read our ⁠Substack⁠Email: [e-mail]

What technology do you think will be the next to have as big an impact on society and civilization as the mobile phone has? Easily got to be AI, I presume. If AI counts as a technology in the same way that mobile phones do. If not then humanoid, let's call it humanites. I think humans are like a platform in the same way that iPhone is like a platform. I think you'll be able to download apps for your humanoid for niche applications. Like, for example, if you want your humanoid to do tango lessons with the elderly, Like that's probably not a use case that Tesla is going to build for, but somebody will build it.

And you'll be able to download that. And instead of paying 30 bucks an hour per person, you can pay two bucks an hour for your humanoid to teach the elderly tangoist. I'm going to raise my silly question for my audience because I know that you're out there. What's the difference between a humanoid and a robot? Why do you refer to them as humanoid, not robots? Well, a humanoid is just a robot in humanoid form. So it's for a long time, I think people have presumed that robots will be just optimized for their specific task. But it seems to be getting clearer and clearer that actually general purpose robots that fit into the way that the world is built are going to be much more useful.

And that is a robot in human form. So, yeah, I'm very British on there being lots of those. Well, here's another tie-in mark to Michi Okaku and quantum supremacy. So if these humanoid get developed, we can just dump them on the surface of the moon, on the surface of Mars. And we could beam our consciousness there, according to. to Michioacu. Theoretically, we don't even need space ships anymore. I think it's presumptive to say that our consciousness will be the most advanced in 20 years' time.

It could be the humanized a much more conscious than us in 20 years' time. How are you defying consciousness? In which case, yeah, you just send them out to the far-flung reaches. Is this faster than speed of light transfer of our consciousness if the humanoid are out in the far reaches of interstellar space? How are we getting at beaming our consciousness into the far reaches of the universe? No, in far as to the galaxy, it would only take about, you know, it takes a few million years to colonize galaxy. Even if you're going at the speed of a push bike, it takes about 10,000 years to get to the nearest star.

So it really would not take that long to colonize galaxy in terms of galaxy time frames, which is honestly a scary thought. That's what the pharmy paradox is. It's where is it really? If there was intelligent life at any other star, you would only take them a couple of million years to colonize galaxy. So we should see them everywhere, but we don't. But technically, Philip, if I was, if my consciousness was in superposition with my humanoid robot somewhere, that's what I meant. Could be instantaneous, right? Is it too late to ask, Philip, where is everybody?

Where is everybody? I mean, I think it's, yeah, it seems like it's, it seems like there isn't anybody. I don't know. I watched this incredible YouTube video yesterday explaining probabilities, probabilities of extraterrestrial life. And the conclusion was basically we are as rare as we sing. All right, so what did we just watch right there? We watched Thinking on Paper, bite-sized, a shot of technological tequila to your prefrontal cortex.

It's just a taste at a smorgasbord of what awaits you with the full thinking on paper interviews. There really is nothing like it out there at the moment, connecting the dots of all these technologies. So subscribe where you're listening. Check the long-former interviews out. And remember, stay curious. Be disruptive.

Keep thinking on paper.