Our computers are becoming more powerful. Smartphones with as much punch as your average 1990s PC now slip into your back pocket and ordinary people are devouring computing power like never before. Machines are used to create digital art, manipulate high-res video, or play online shooters in sparkling HD. A powerful computer is now a must — and what do we do when our laptops and desktops can’t cope anymore? The most popular solutions have always been to buy a new computer, or outsource the work. But what if there was another option?

Polish startup Golem describes itself as the Airbnb for computers. Just as you might rent out a spare room, the Warsaw-based startup lets users rent out their spare computing power. A complex mathematic calculation, for example, which might take an hour using a single PC, can be split into smaller pieces and sent to other computers all over the world. When each computer has finished their part of the puzzle, they send it back to the original user to be pieced back to together again — all in a matter of seconds. But Golem believes it’s not just quicker processing times that are important, rather that one of the modern world’s most precious resources — computing power — remains in the hands of the many.

“A decentralised computing power marketplace is our way to prove that there is a better way of coordinating computing resources,” says Maria Paula Fernandez, Golem’s Head of External Relations. “The current centralised systems have failed to protect the people. Uneven wealth distribution, lack of banking access, precarisation of work, and data misuse are some of the consequences of centralisation.”