The laptop that helped launch Barimah Asare’s career eventually presented him with a familiar problem.
It still worked. It simply could not do everything he needed it to do.
Asare first recognized the value of access to a capable computer while he was still in school. Having a laptop opened the door to programs, creative tools and information that would otherwise have remained beyond his reach. Later, as a product-design student, he encountered increasingly demanding software. The computer that had once represented access began to represent a constraint.
“I realized I had hit that wall once again,” Asare said. His laptop was not necessarily broken or particularly old, but he needed more computing power to use the software required for his studies.
The conventional answer was to buy another computer. Asare began looking for a different one.
His proposed solution, Project Hivemind, is a compact external graphics processing unit enclosure, commonly called an eGPU. The device allows a compatible laptop to use a replaceable desktop graphics card for more demanding work, including gaming, graphics, video production and some design applications.
The idea is not to make an old computer new. It is to give users another option before replacing a working machine. “There has to be another way,” Asare recalled thinking. “As long as I can truly give people another option that is viable, without too many compromises, that would make me satisfied.” That objective places Hivemind within a growing, if still fragmented, movement to challenge the short lifecycles of consumer electronics.
The world generated approximately 62 million metric tons of electronic waste in 2022, according to the United Nations’ Global E-waste Monitor. Only 22.3 percent was documented as formally collected and recycled through environmentally sound systems. The report found that e-waste generation is increasing almost five times faster than documented recycling. Limited repair options, short product lifecycles and product-design shortcomings all contribute to the problem.
Project Hivemind’s sustainability proposition is relatively straightforward. Graphics performance can become a limiting factor before the rest of a laptop fails. If users can upgrade that capability externally, some may postpone buying a new machine.
The Swarovski Foundation, whose Creatives for Our Future program supported Asare, says Hivemind could extend a laptop’s useful life by as much as three years. That remains a project claim rather than an independently established result. The first real test will come when more units reach users and Hivemind can determine whether the product changes purchasing behavior, rather than merely adding another piece of hardware to users’ desks.
Asare said the prototype has moved beyond sketches and early design work. His next objective is to place working units with users, gather evidence and build a sustainable production process. He hopes to have approximately 100 units in public use within a year. The challenge is not merely technical. It is financial. “Fundraising is challenging,” Asare said. He believes that getting functional units into users’ hands will provide the evidence necessary to attract investment and expand production.
A New Design For An Existing Technology
External graphics enclosures already exist. Companies including Sonnet Technologies and Razer sell systems that let compatible laptops use desktop graphics cards.
Sonnet’s Breakaway Box 850 T5 supports Thunderbolt 5 computers, along with certain Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 Windows systems. Razer’s Core X V2 offers a similar performance proposition. Both demonstrate that a laptop can gain substantial graphics capability through an external device. This means Hivemind is not creating the eGPU category. Its opportunity lies in improving the category.
Asare is trying to address the compromises that have kept external graphics equipment from becoming an ordinary consumer upgrade. Traditional enclosures can be large, costly and complicated. Buyers may need to select a separate graphics card, purchase an adequate power supply and determine whether their laptop, operating system and drivers support the configuration.
Hivemind’s success will depend on whether it can make that experience smaller, clearer and economically sensible. It will also depend on the definition of “sustainable.”
An external GPU requires materials, manufacturing, electricity and eventually its own end-of-life plan. A user who frequently replaces graphics cards could generate additional waste even while retaining the original laptop. The environmental benefit therefore cannot be measured only by the number of computers that remain in use. The relevant question is whether the total system avoids more production and disposal than it creates.
Repair, Remanufacture Or Upgrade?
Other companies are testing different answers.
Framework Computer designs laptops that users can repair and upgrade internally. Owners can replace components rather than discard the entire device. The Framework Laptop 16 even includes upgradeable graphics, while components released for successive generations of the Laptop 13 have remained compatible with the original model.
Framework represents the structural version of Asare’s argument. Instead of adding upgradeability to a conventional laptop, it builds upgradeability into the computer.
Circular Computing takes another route. The company remanufactures used enterprise laptops through a standardized industrial process. The British Standards Institution has certified its process as capable of producing computers with performance and warranty protections comparable to new devices.
This approach may be especially relevant for businesses, schools and governments managing large fleets. An institution may obtain more predictable environmental and financial results by remanufacturing and redeploying computers than by equipping individual machines with external graphics hardware.
Fairphone offers another important lesson. The European electronics company designs smartphones and audio products around replaceable parts, repair access and extended software support. Its model recognizes that physical durability alone does not determine useful life. A device may remain intact but become difficult to use when software updates, security support or replacement parts disappear.
Hivemind faces the same reality. Upgrading a laptop’s graphics capability will not repair an aging battery, increase insufficient memory or guarantee continued operating-system support. It will be most useful for computers whose graphics performance is the principal barrier to continued use.
Design As An Argument For Choice
Asare does not present Hivemind as the only answer to electronic waste. He presents it as an argument for choice.
Desktop-computer owners have long been able to replace graphics cards, memory and storage without buying a completely new system. Laptop users rarely have the same flexibility. Modern machines are often thinner and more integrated, but that integration can make meaningful upgrades difficult or impossible.
For Asare, the problem is partly environmental and partly about agency.
“People don’t buy a new device just because they want one,” he said. “They actually want to do something with the device.”
His design process has also depended heavily on prospective users. Asare posted earlier prototypes online, including in Reddit communities, and used the responses to refine the product. He describes the process as a continuing exchange between the designer and the people confronting the problem. “It really has been a symbiotic relationship,” he said. “It always comes back to the community.”
That approach may prove important as Hivemind moves from an appealing concept to a testable product. Users will determine whether the system is portable enough, affordable enough and simple enough to become part of an ordinary technology lifecycle. They will also determine whether it actually delays replacement.
Project Hivemind cannot solve the global e-waste problem by itself. No single enclosure, repairable laptop or remanufacturing program can. Electronics become waste through an entire system of design decisions, software policies, consumer incentives, repair restrictions and inadequate collection infrastructure. Product design can make continued use easier or harder.
Asare is betting that many consumers would keep their computers longer if they had a credible way to do so. Hivemind’s next phase will test whether an external graphics enclosure can become that option and whether a product built to deliver more computing power can also reduce the pressure to consume more computers.
