Decentralized smartphone APhone and Aethir have jointly launched a new scaling solution that promises to increase APhone’s user capacity by tenfold and provide more scalability for the decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) industry.

The new scaling solution will allow APhone to accommodate over 800,000 daily concurrent users while reducing the monthly user cost to below $0.60, compared to the previous over $6 dollars — making for an over 90% cost decrease.

The significant cost reduction was achieved through Aethir’s distributed GPU cloud computing network, according to William Paul Peckham, the chief business officer of Aphone, who told Cointelegraph:

“[Aethir] were able to reduce the cost by streamlining operation and striking favorable deals with hardware manufacturers and data centers. Their tech allows them to virtualize and split the hardware without sacrificing capacity to offer superior quality for the phone service without demanding extra hardware.”

The new scaling solution will save APhone over $3.2 million every quarter, thanks to Aethir’s distributed GPU infrastructure.

Aethir Edge AI to enhance Web3 mobile applications

As part of the strategic partnership, the decentralized smartphone will incorporate Aethir Edge, an enterprise-grade artificial intelligence (AI) device integrated into the platform’s cloud infrastructure.

Aethir Edge will play a key role in Aphone’s operational framework by enhancing the speed and efficiency of Web3 applications.

Aethir Edge hosts APhone’s instances, hence assuring lower latency and smooth performance for more resource-intensive decentralized applications (DApps) like Web3 games, or metaverse platforms.

Aethir Edge will also enhance security and network performance, according to Mark Rydon, the co-founder and head of strategy at Aethir.

Rydon wrote in a statement shared with Cointelegraph:

“By assigning unique IP addresses to each cloud smartphone, Aethir Edge is massively beneficial for applications requiring distinct network identities, such as gaming, IoT, and decentralized finance platforms,”

DePIN industry could hit $3.5 trillion by 2028

DePIN is one of the fastest-growing industries, with an estimated total addressable market of over $2.2 trillion.

The DePIN industry is expected to reach over $3.5 trillion by 2028, which would mean an over $1.3 trillion increase, according to a Messari report from January 2023.

The ambitious milestone could be reached with the right regulatory and technological advancements in the next four years, according to APhone’s Peckham:

“While Messari's $3.5 trillion prediction for 2028 is ambitious, reaching such a valuation will depend on regulatory developments, technological advancements, and broad adoption across industries. DePIN removes costs from intermediaries while increasing security of the network, which is becoming increasingly valuable for scaling businesses.”

Others are also optimistic about the industry’s future. For instance, Carlos Lei Santos, the co-founder and CEO of Uplink, expects the next $1 trillion company to emerge from the DePIN sector.