Intel could be getting into the Bitcoin-mining hardware business.
As spotted by Tom’s Hardware, Intel will be showing up at this year’s ISSCC conference with a presentation regarding a new development called the “Bonanza Mine,” an ultra-low-voltage and energy-efficient Bitcoin mining ASIC. An acronym for Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, ASICs are typically chosen by miners who are seeking greater power efficiency than that provided by the typical GPU mining rig.
“Intel has done design work around SHA 256 optimized ASICs for several years beginning with pathfinding work done in Intel Labs, the company told the publication in a statement. “We will share more details in the future.”
Intel previously confirmed that its upcoming Arc Alchemist graphics cards will not launch with a cryptocurrency mining limiter. Raja Koduri, Intel’s Systems and Graphics Architect, Senior Vice President and GM, suggested to popular streamer Dr. Lupo last month that Intel doesn’t want its GPUs being used for mining purposes, but he also gave some interesting comments regarding blockchain technology.
“The other part of the answer is that we do think that this whole blockchain, as you call it, which coins are good […], I think blockchain is a transaction thing that is run much more efficiently than the burning of hardware cycles, is something that we are working on,” Koduri said.
“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. But being able to do much more efficient blockchain validation at a much lower cost, much lower power, is a pretty solvable problem. And you know, we are working on that, and at some point in time, hopefully not too far into the future, we will kinda share some interesting hardware for that.”
Intel is expected to share more about its Bitcoin-mining Bonanza Mine chip on February 23.
Source: Tom’s Hardware