Intel has formed a New Custom Compute Group dedicated to the development of “the most energy-efficient computing technologies at scale”. The world’s second-largest semiconductor chip manufacturer will enter into the Bitcoin mining space with its new Ultra Fast Bitcoin Mining Chip slated to be launched later this year.
- The objective of the Custom Compute Group is to build custom silicon platforms optimized for customers’ workloads, including blockchain and other custom accelerated supercomputing opportunities at the edge, Raja M. Koduri, senior vice president and general manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group at Intel Corporation, told in a blog post.
- Intel reiterated its commitment to the development of blockchain technologies with a roadmap of energy-efficient accelerators.
- “Blockchain is a technology that has the potential to enable everyone to own much of the digital content and services they create. Some even call it an inflection point in computing, fundamentally disrupting the way we store, process and transact our digital assets as we usher in the era of metaverse and Web 3.0. No matter how the future evolves, it is certain the availability of a lot more compute to everyone will play a central role,” Raja mentioned.
- Raja stated that some blockchains require an enormous amount of computing power, which unfortunately translates to an immense amount of energy. As per Raja, Intel is focusing its efforts on realizing the full potential of blockchain by developing the most energy-efficient computing technologies at scale.
- To support this, and additional emerging technology, Intel has formed the new Custom Compute Group within Intel’s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) business unit. The objective of this new business unit is to build custom silicon platforms optimized for customers’ workloads, including blockchain and other custom accelerated supercomputing opportunities at the edge.
- Intel’s Bitcoin mining chip, or what the company says the blockchain accelerator, will ship later this year.
- Argo Blockchain, BLOCK (formerly Square) and GRIID Infrastructure are among the first customers for Intel’s upcoming mining chip.
- The new Intel chip has over 1000 times better performance per watt than mainstream GPUs for SHA-256 based mining.
- Intel will unveil its ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient Bitcoin-mining chips at the ISSCC chip conference this month.