Mobile Cloud Computing and Sustainable Development: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions

The number of smartphone users has increased from 3.6 billion in 2016 to 6.25 billion by 2021, which shows that mobile phone usage has increased dramatically over the past few years. This is due to the development of mobile computing applications like commerce, healthcare, e-learning, etc. The use of mobile devices has resulted in an exponential rise in the amount of data generated and as a result the amount of energy consumed has increased. This is where cloud computing plays a major role. Cloud computing has transformed traditional mobile computing. The new mobile cloud not only provides on-demand services but also data storage and increased energy efficiency. Through mobile computing based on cloud computing, mobile device functions can be virtualized, reducing power consumption. In this paper, the authors survey application and potential of mobile cloud computing and present the energy-efficient ways. Also, the paper discusses development opportunities of mobile cloud computing. The research also mentions some of the major challenges in current mobile computing technology.