Intel chases after Bitcoin miners with dedicated chip
- Reference: 1644601418
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/02/11/intel_bitcoin_mining/
- Source link:
The company says it will ship an energy-efficient accelerator for those cryptocurrency miners; Argo Blockchain, BLOCK (formerly known as Square), and GRIID Infrastructure will be among its earliest users. Specifics on the chip will be detailed at this month's International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).
"This architecture is implemented on a tiny piece of silicon so that it has minimal impact to the supply of current products," Intel's Raja Koduri [1]said in a letter posted on Friday.
[2]
The comment is a slight jab at the shortage of graphics processors, with crypto miners scalping up available supplies at inflated prices to boost mining activity. AMD and Nvidia have [3]both tried to reduce GPU hoarding by miners, with software locks on some cards to slow mining activity and dedicated hardware for digicash generators that should leave regular kit available for other customers
[4]
[5]
Koduri's letter, which seems to have actually been written by some marketing person, is loaded with exhausting buzzwords like "Web 3.0," "metaverse," "blockchain," and "Moore’s Law is also enabling us to democratize access to this enormous pool of processing power." But Intel seems serious about this, and is looking to cash in on the opportunity provided by blockchain, which is expected to be the base for economic activity in the metaverse.
Companies that include Microsoft and Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, have placed multi-billion dollar bets on the metaverse, with games like Fortnite and Minecraft being early examples of success. But then there are also metaverse have-beens like Second Life.
[6]
Koduri said more computing would be needed to drive the metaverse infrastructure. Intel has created a Custom Compute Group within Intel's Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics business unit to fill that gap.
“The objective of this team is to build custom silicon platforms optimized for customers' workloads, including blockchain and other custom accelerated supercomputing opportunities at the edge,” Koduri wrote.
[7]Reports last month suggested that Intel would be showing off a Bitcoin mining ASIC dubbed "Bonanza Mine" at the ISSCC that can accelerate in hardware the SHA-256 algorithm used in Bitcoin mining. Koduri has now shared additional details on the chip.
[8]
"We expect that our circuit innovations will deliver a blockchain accelerator that has over 1000x better performance per watt than mainstream GPUs for SHA-256 based mining," Koduri wrote.
[9]GPU makers increasingly disengage from crypto miners
[10]Intel plunking down $20bn for at least two chip factories in Ohio
[11]Sweden asks EU to ban Bitcoin mining because while hydroelectric power is cheap, they need it for other stuff
[12]Smuggler caught with 256 Intel Core processors wrapped around him in cling film
Blockchain enables cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, but is also being used to record and track transactions of assets in verticals like manufacturing and real estate. Intel may be trying to solve an energy-efficiency problem plaguing crypto mining hardware, but a short-term view to cash in on the opportunity may backfire for the company, like it has before with mobile devices.
The hardware development for metaverse is still in its early stages, and focused more on look and feel such as graphics interfaces and computer vision, the communications infrastructure such as edge processing, and the economics such as digital currency and advertising.
Nvidia and Intel have talked about using GPUs and accelerators to power graphics and artificial intelligence applications like natural language processing. Samsung and Inspur in November [13]introduced an all-flash PoseidonV2 storage server with Intel’s Sapphire Rapids chip, which could be tweaked for the metaverse at the Open Compute Project conference last year.
On the other hand, smaller chip companies like Imagination Technologies are [14]being cautious , as the hardware requirements for the metaverse aren’t clear yet. ®
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[1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/opinion/thoughts-blockchain-custom-compute-group.html
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Ygbqmvhf06rZ0ZCtmwgTOwAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/19/gpu_makers_not_keen_on_crypto/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ygbqmvhf06rZ0ZCtmwgTOwAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Ygbqmvhf06rZ0ZCtmwgTOwAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ygbqmvhf06rZ0ZCtmwgTOwAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-to-unveil-bitcoin-mining-bonanza-mine-asic-at-chip-conference
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Ygbqmvhf06rZ0ZCtmwgTOwAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/19/gpu_makers_not_keen_on_crypto/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/21/intel_us20bn_ohio/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/26/sweden_bitcoin_mining_ban/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/09/china_cpu_gpu/
[13] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211109005871/en/Inspur-Information-and-Samsung-Advance-Joint-Open-Storage-Solution-for-OCP
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/05/chip_makers_metaverse/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "Intel will start selling a chip to mine bitcoin"
What's the point ?
The hardware will eventually make the cryptocurrency obsolete. The hash rate will be so extremely high that you hit results all the time in a blink of an eye. Who cares it costs a forest in electricity. Eventually, every noob can mine fast enough so that there is no value left. That is the cryptocurrency singularity. Well, yes, you can make a new algorithm, but the hardware shall catch that too.
The effect is always the same. The first ones in the pyramid-scheme are those who profit. The hardware-pushers may be late to the party, but they still have lots of profitable sales on the horizon.
Re: "Intel will start selling a chip to mine bitcoin"
Blockchain is the thing that will survive. It is just a good ledger system.
It should be a way to move money, not speculate.
Thank god, gpus will be available now, oh wait, gpus are not being used to mine bitcoin or any other sha crypto, so will make zero difference
If it's that good
Why is Intel not using it to mine its own coins?
OTOH I kind of wish they would invent something that finds all the bitcoins very quickly, so then all the miners will stop burning the planet.
Re: If it's that good
Merchants made more money selling spades to gold miners than actually mining for gold.
I am talking about the California gold rush.
There's a nice place in hell for bitcoin miners, considering a large proportion of it is using dirty coal and ramping up energy prices for normal people (see Kazakhstan and China). Not only is it pointless speculation, it's f*cking up the planet as well. Nice work a**holes.
Intel seems serious about this
and therefore no longer seems serious.
I mean, fine if you want to cash in on the idiots who envisage a future where people spend non existent money in non existent worlds on non existent stuff, but couldn't you better spend your time on innovation that can benefit real world applications of computing?
Nice one Intel, seems like a great idea to waste limited production capacity on a chip designed to mine imaginary fun bucks when there is a global chip shortage.
And just think the US gov are about to give them a big chunk of American tax payers money to build some more fabs, so they can push out useless stuff like this.
Intel is trying too hard
To paraphrase Jim Samuels (fortune), Intel is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to everybody and still nobody likes him.
They have their one hit wonder, the x86, and they've shown time and time again that even after throwing money at everything, they're really not innovators. They're scared now because their cash cow has become sickly because of neglect, so we see stuff like this.
"Intel will start selling a chip to mine bitcoin"
What's the point ? Bitcoin is nearing end-of-life, the number of minable coins is almost depleted.
Once again, industry is reacting once the forest has burned down.
Make a chip to mine Ethereum, that thing that redefines what it is on a whim.