Vodafone : becomes UK’s top contributor of computer processing power i...

Plans in place to become a top 10 global contributor

Vodafone is now the UK's number one daily contributor to the World Community Grid - the leading global volunteer-led organisation of nearly 790,000 individuals and organisations donating computing processing power to advance scientific research into human health, poverty and sustainability.

Within a few months, we aim to become a top ten daily contributor worldwide and look at ways to contribute more spare processing power as we accelerate the migration of our core networks and IT to the cloud. This frees up redundant hardware and extra spare capacity from new virtual machines (which emulate industrial computers) to donate to the grid, while still being able to drive our 5G services and Internet of Things (IoT) activities.

As a large contributor to the grid, we enable scientists signed up to the service to run more complex computer simulations than any other member in the UK. What started nine years ago with Sami Gabriel, a Distinguished Engineer at Vodafone Group's Research & Development centre, donating the processing power of a single computer system, has grown exponentially. The team has continually added hardware over the decade and is now contributing the equivalent of around two and half years of spare processing power every day.

Vodafone Group Chief Technology Officer Johan Wibergh said: 'With this project and others we are helping academics and scientists complete their research within months as opposed to years, and at the same time, tackle the growing global concern about technology trash from discarded PCs, electronics and phones.

'As we move the remaining 50% of our European network to the cloud using faster and more energy efficient virtual machines, we will either reuse, recycle or resell redundant hardware.'