Old smartphones are usually left in drawers for years or the smarter users send them for recycling when they upgrade to a new handset. However, Google has a new plan for the retired mobiles that could still play an important role. As per a new research shared by the tech giant, old smartphones could be used to power cloud applications, research projects and education platforms by turning them into small-scale computing clusters. This could reduce electronic waste and lower the environmental impact of computing.
Google Exploring ‘Phone Cluster Computing’
This research has been done in collaboration with the University of California San Diego and the tech giant is studying a concept called ‘phone cluster computing.’ The idea is to reuse the core hardware inside the old smartphones instead of discarding them.
As per the research, the experts remove parts that are not needed, such as displays, batteries, camera and outer rings. The leftover is the motherboard, which contains the processor, memory and storage. These components are used to connect them with each other and run on Linux-based operating systems. Notably, the connected devices can be managed using Kuberbetes, a software platform commonly used to organise and operate cloud infrastructure.
How Can Old Phones Become A Data Centre?
As per the Google research, a group of nearly 25 to 50 old smartphones can offer commuting performance similar to a modern servicer for specific types of tasks. By linking thousands of retired mobiles, researchers note that they can create computing systems capable of supporting cloud services and research workloads.
This project could eventually lead to a computing cluster made up of nearly 2,000 retired Pixel smartphones.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego are planning to use a large phone-based cluster to support courses such as Systems Programming and Parallel Computing. The project will also help scientists understand how consumer devices perform when used in data-centre-style environments.
If successful, the initiative could offer a new way to give old smartphones a second life while reducing the environmental cost of building new computing infrastructure.