Old Phones Power New Classrooms

Researchers at UC San Diego, with Google’s help, turned 2,000 old Pixel phones into a surprisingly effective mini-computing cluster—stripping them down to motherboards, swapping in Linux, and grouping them together. The setup matched professional servers in benchmarks, supporting up to 100 classes simultaneously at a fraction of the cost. While not a replacement for massive data centers, it’s a smart, budget-friendly solution for academic use, proving smartphones can handle much of what schools need for teaching and grading. The project also tackles e-waste by repurposing old devices, with plans to deploy it in fall 2026—if successful, it could inspire other schools to cut costs and reuse tech. Support the show:Get a discount at https://solipillow.com/discount/dnn. Advertise on DNN:[email protected] This is an automated, high-level news summary based on public reporting.Report issues to [email protected]. View sources & latest updates:https://sources.thednn.ai/ef544aa67cc1f442