Google Repurposes 2,000 Smartphones into Mini Data Center

The tech industry is grappling with the rising costs of AI infrastructure and data center electricity. To address this issue, Google has partnered with researchers at UC San Diego to create a mini data center cluster using repurposed smartphones.

The project involves connecting the motherboards of approximately 2,000 older Pixel smartphones, which are then stripped of their displays and batteries. A Linux OS is ported onto the devices to control them.

The resulting mobile AP-based servers consume significantly less power than conventional server chipsets, between 73% to over 90% less, depending on the source. This makes them a more eco-friendly option for computing resources.