A mobile device includes a computer-readable medium storing computer program instructions, a data processor to execute the instructions, and communication circuitry configured for local area wireless connectivity with neighboring mobile devices and for wireless connectivity to a remote server from which at least a portion of a data set is downloaded. Execution of the computer program instructions results in estimating a cost to perform a computation task on the data set. If the estimated cost is greater than a threshold cost, an ad-hoc wireless network is formed with at least one other mobile device and the mobile device downloads a portion of the data set assigned to the mobile device. The mobile device then performs a computation task on the downloaded portion of the data set and wirelessly transfers a result of the computation task to the at least one other mobile device of the ad-hoc wireless network.