this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2026
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A low-carbon computing platform from your retired phones (research.google)
submitted 2 months ago by Eyekaytee@aussie.zone to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

researchers at the University of California San Diego are building a pathway for the second life of phones through the exploration of “phone cluster computing.” This is a process whereby the motherboards of retired smartphones are extracted, collected into clusters, and redeployed as a general-purpose computing platform. With Google’s support, the university plans to deploy a datacenter built from 2,000 Pixel smartphones that will provide hundreds of researchers and students with low-cost, low-carbon cloud computing, reducing the need for newly-manufactured hardware and their associated emissions.

Well, it’s better than nothing. I presume these are trade-in phones. And it means that in this era of memory scarcity, existing memory is being reused instead of scrapped AND new memory isn’t being earmarked for these data center deployments.

However, this appears to currently be a one-off publicity deployment, not a go-to strategy.

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"We installed postmarketOS on some older hardware, look, we are saving the planet!"

I am being facetious of course, but it would be great if manufacturers+google opened this up to everyone.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This is a process whereby the motherboards of retired smartphones are extracted, collected into clusters, and redeployed

the university plans to deploy a datacenter built from 2,000 Pixel smartphones

Is a bit more than installing postmarketOS on some older hardware

it would be great if manufacturers+google opened this up to everyone

absolutely, one of my biggest wishes is that AI inference could be split up and done on home computers, similar to Folding@Home, with points and maybe even $ given to those who participate

We've never had more computing power in our hands but it feels like so much of it just sits idle now