New Delhi: Chip-making giant Intel is working towards making a chip designed to mine cryptocurrency and it will also be energy-efficient. The company has also announced that it will engage and promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem and will help advance this technology in a sustainable way. The energy-efficient crypto chip's first buyers will be Block, the Jack Dorsey-owned fintech company formerly known as Square. The company is calling its first crypto chip a “blockchain accelerator” and it is slated to ship later this year.
The other company that has also pre-ordered the technology, includes Bitcoin mining company GRIID Infrastructures.
"We are mindful that some blockchains require an enormous amount of computing power, which unfortunately translates to an immense amount of energy. Our customers are asking for scalable and sustainable solutions, which is why we are focusing our efforts on realizing the full potential of blockchain by developing the most energy-efficient computing technologies at scale," Raja M. Koduri, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group, Intel, said in a statement.
"Our blockchain accelerator will ship later this year. We are engaged directly with customers that share our sustainability goals. Argo Blockchain, BLOCK (formerly known as Square) and GRIID Infrastructure are among our first customers for this upcoming product. This architecture is implemented on a tiny piece of silicon so that it has minimal impact to the supply of current products," Koduri added.
Meanwhile, the Santa Clara, California-headquartered Intel Labs has dedicated decades of research into reliable cryptography, hashing techniques and ultra-low voltage circuits. The company mentioned that it expects its circuit innovations will deliver a blockchain accelerator that has over 1000 times better performance per watt than mainstream GPUs for SHA-256 based mining.
More information about the crypto-focued chip will be revealed at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference that begins on February 20.
Currently, most of the chips used in cryptocurrency mining are made by Samsung and Taiwan's TSMC -- the world’s biggest chipmakers.