Intel to unveil Bitcoin mining ASIC at upcoming chip conference

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: Block isn’t the only mainstream tech company interested in creating an efficient Bitcoin mining solution. Intel at the upcoming International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) has a presentation scheduled under the Highlighted Chip Releases category titled Bonanza Mine: An Ultra-Low-Voltage Energy-Efficient Bitcoin Mining ASIC. Nine Intel employees are on the docket for the presentation from offices in Hillsborough, Santa Clara and San Diego, California.

Unlike a complex general purpose CPU or GPU, an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) is a type of chip designed for a specific type of task – in this case, Bitcoin mining. They do only one job, but they’re very good at it.

Raja Koduri, SVP and GM of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) Group at Intel, said in an interview last month that being able to do much more efficient blockchain validation at a much lower cost with much less power is a pretty solvable problem.

“And that's not a GPU thing, so don't try to confuse that as a GPU thing. GPUs will do graphics, gaming, and all those wonderful things,” Koduri added.

Some 18.93 million Bitcoins, or more than 90 percent of the total supply that will ever be created, have already been mined. That leaves only a couple million more Bitcoin left to mine, and the last ones won’t be minted until 2140 by design.

The biggest variable here is simply the unknown. If Bitcoin continues its mainstream push, those last couple million coins could be extremely valuable over the long haul. If not, well there could be a lot more useless hardware rolling off the assembly lines soon.

The 2022 ISSCC runs from February 20-26, 2022, and will be a virtual only event with no in-person element. Intel’s Bonanza Mine presentation is scheduled under the Highlighted Chip Releases segment set for February 23 at 7 a.m. Pacific.

Image credit: Alesia Kozik

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93030-intel-unveil-bitcoin-mining-asic-upcoming-chip-conference.html

 

[Dimitriid]

Nvidia and now Intel need to get a lot more backlash for openly creating ASICs and Hash products.

That's it really: if we don't support wasteful and stupid practices like these stake coins (Not *all* coins before proof of work enthusiast come in to make that point) we also shouldn't support the hardware manufacturers that know well almost all of these products will go on to do stuff that's not only environmentally terrible but can potentially destabilize entire nations like Kazakhstan recently.

 

[m4a4]

Nvidia and now Intel need to get a lot more backlash for openly creating ASICs and Hash products.

That's it really: if we don't support wasteful and stupid practices like these stake coins (Not *all* coins before proof of work enthusiast come in to make that point) we also shouldn't support the hardware manufacturers that know well almost all of these products will go on to do stuff that's not only environmentally terrible but can potentially destabilize entire nations like Kazakhstan recently.

Or not. Would rather miners go for cards more geared for them.

And Kazakhstan is one of your arguments? Do you understand what corruption is?

 

[Kosmoz]

People refuse to understand that there is no world wide policy to shut down crypto and it will never be, until the time comes to crash down everything (inclding FIAT, so that the one world currency to rise).

Do people not see how divided the world is with crypto? Some countries ban it, others adopt it... same goes for big corporations and even banks...

To keep wishing to go away without a major paradigm shift or catastrophe is a futile wish, it won't happen unless something like that happens.

All the anti-cripto people can hope and should hope for is that all this get more civilized and other alternatives to mining that don't involve GPUs will come. You can't hope for anything other than that, unless you want to constantly be disappointed.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Nvidia and now Intel need to get a lot more backlash for openly creating ASICs and Hash products.

That's it really: if we don't support wasteful and stupid practices like these stake coins (Not *all* coins before proof of work enthusiast come in to make that point) we also shouldn't support the hardware manufacturers that know well almost all of these products will go on to do stuff that's not only environmentally terrible but can potentially destabilize entire nations like Kazakhstan recently.

No they dont deserve a backlash for creating mining products. Crypto currency is great for humans in general. The only people who should be upset are people that play computer games as it makes GPUs harder to get (boo hoo) and communist types as crypto is decentralised, meaning that no single bank or government can just print more, or meaningfully affect its value. Which traditionally ruins the value of the currency along with the lives of the people who are using it.

If you live in a country where the leader starts printing tonnes of money to fund their policies, like for example in Venezuela where the interest rate in 2021 is 2700%. You can just put your money into crypto and you wont lose it all.

 

[GamerNerves]

Twisting global economics is not my thing, no matter how many possible positives some may point out about crypto - it's too unpredictable and that is it. I hesitantly agree that to some degree, crypto will remain for a long time, but it's value is going to crash eventually like debated many times before.

Crypto is a thing of uncertainty and for many a real fraud when they get the short end of the stick, so supporting such activity is a no for me relating Intel and Nvidia. It's also waste of energy.
I'm going all AMD the next upgrade again if there is no notable price or performance disparity between these competing companies then - that is my standing.

EDIT. grammar

 

[bviktor]

Just let PoW die please. It's utterly pointless to develop "more efficient" mining devices, because then all that happens is the difficulity rises. The used watts won't decrease. That's how PoW works, that's the fundamental behavior of it.

Crypto isn't fundamentally flawed, PoW is. Use Stellar, Cardano, or other sensible, eco-friendly coins.

 

[ET3D]

Just let PoW die please. It's utterly pointless to develop "more efficient" mining devices, because then all that happens is the difficulity rises. The used watts won't decrease. That's how PoW works, that's the fundamental behavior of it.

Exactly. Great money printing scheme by Intel (and of course, coin lovers), but mined coins are designed to become less efficient the more computing power is put into them, so all that will happen is that everyone will buy great quantities of this chip until the power requirements grow back to what they were, or higher.

 

[Bamda]

"Raja Koduri, SVP and GM of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) Group at Intel, said in an interview last month that being able to do much more efficient blockchain validation at a much lower cost with much less power is a pretty solvable problem."

Now this is a tech that I can get excited about.