Intel has said that it is working on a chip for blockchain-related operations like cryptomining. The company revealed in the announcement that it expects to release the processor later this year.
Intel seems to be following the footsteps of other silicon giants like AMD and Nvidia. To give you an example, Nvidia recently produced a dedicated GPU for professional mining under the CMP HX family, although it came at a very high cost. As a result of the cryptocurrency mining boom, there is a severe shortage of graphics processing units (GPUs), with scalpers charging a large premium to miners while gamers struggle to find one at an affordable price.
There has been a rise in prices. Even Best Buy is taking advantage of the situation by putting Nvidia’s new RTX 3000-series GPU behind a $200 a month subscription paywall. CPUs, on the other hand, appear to be the next target. Radeon processors with a large cache are preferred by the new Raptoreum (RTM) cryptocurrency. Experts are concerned that a shortage of AMD Ryzen processors may follow if enough miners hop on the Raptoreum bandwagon. This is why Intel says it’s working on a “blockchain accelerator” chip for crypto mining.
Block, founded by former Twitter CEO and vocal supporter of blockchain technology, is among the first consumers of Intel’s chips. According to Raja Koduri, Intel’s senior vice president, “We expect our circuit advancements to offer a blockchain accelerator with over 1000x greater performance per watt than conventional GPUs for SHA-256 mining.” Koduri has stated that the current internet-computing infrastructure would need a thousand-fold increase in order to accomplish the metaverse dreams.
The SHA-256 acronym stands for Secure Hashing Algorithm, which takes a random input and outputs a 256-bit token. It is the backbone of the Bitcoin system, responsible for establishing addresses and confirming transactions.
This month’s International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) will provide more details about Intel’s next processor. The company’s presentation is titled “An Ultra-Low-Voltage Energy-Efficient Bitcoin Mining ASIC.” ASIC stands for Application-Specific Integrated Circuit and refers to a chip developed for a specific function.
ASICs for mining bitcoins are real and rather common. Koduri says that Intel’s new crypto-mining chip is being made so that it won’t affect the supply of its other products.
Rather than decreasing hash rates to discourage crypto miners from abusing its ARC GPUs as NVIDIA did, Intel appears to be giving them a specialized chip intended solely for cryptocurrency mining. As part of its statement, Intel says it is working on “the most energy-efficient computing solutions” for blockchain applications.
Environmental concerns have been raised about blockchain-based activities, particularly crypto mining and NFT production. It remains to be seen how Intel’s crypto-focused CPU overcomes these challenges while remaining competitive in a market dominated by NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.
