Old Smartphones as Eco-Friendly Servers: A New Benchmark
A 2023 Pixel Fold outperforms an AMD EPYC server in single-core benchmarks, suggesting potential in repurposing smartphones. This shift could mitigate environmental impacts by prolonging smartphone life and reducing demand for new materials.

The Pixel Fold (2023) surpassed an Asus RS720A-E11 server with AMD EPYC processors in single-core benchmark tests. While the server has a significant advantage in multi-threaded performance due to its numerous cores, Google Research indicates that 25 to 50 smartphone motherboards could match the power of a single server.
Each smartphone motherboard contains 8 to 12 GB of RAM, sufficient for common academic applications. By clustering these boards using Kubernetes and switching to a Linux data center distribution, unnecessary background processes are eliminated, enhancing efficiency. Retaining existing smartphone hardware can reduce the need for new material extraction and manufacturing, addressing sustainability concerns.




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