Uni researchers plan to build a low-carbon data center hivemind from 2,000 Pixel smartphones—with Google's help, no less

**TL;DR:** Uni researchers plan to build a low-carbon data center hivemind from 2,000 Pixel smartphones—with Google's help, no less

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E-waste is a massive environmental problem. So are current data center plans, if recent reports are to be believed . However, a team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego, have come up with an intriguing idea: They plan to use 2,000 Google Pixel smartphones to build a cloud computing data center with already-existing tech. According to a Google Research blog post , on average, people replace their smartphones every four years (via Hothardware ).

However, many modern (yet outdated, in terms of our constant desire for shiny new things) examples have processors, memory, and storage chips that are relatively powerful, particularly when you chain them together. That's wasted hardware, and an ecological concern when you think of the extra carbon emissions created by manufacturing their replacements. By putting the existing chips to good use, it prevents them from going to landfill—and might even negate the need for new hardware in certain applications.

The post's authors say that the single-threaded performance of a modern smartphone's processor cores is on par with (or better than) many multicore server chips. However, modern servers are made up of dozens of multit

Source: PC Gamer

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Last updated: June 16, 2026.

Additional context: early-cycle stories often look bigger in headlines than in day-to-day impact. The useful move is to identify the smallest set of facts that would change your decision, then wait for those facts to land.

Additional context: early-cycle stories often look bigger in headlines than in day-to-day impact. The useful move is to identify the smallest set of facts that would change your decision, then wait for those facts to land.