According to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine, Intel today announced details for its new bitcoin mining chip, the Intel Blockscale ASIC, which aims to increase the energy efficiency of Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining by leveraging the company’s decades of research and development in related areas.
“The Intel Blockscale ASIC is going to play a major role in helping bitcoin mining companies achieve both sustainability and hash rate scaling objectives in the years ahead,” said Jose Rios, general manager of Blockchain and Business Solutions in Intel’s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group.
As opposed to the existing industry standard of offering a complete ASIC mining system, Intel will provide its customers with only the ASIC chip.
Each Blockscale ASIC chip will have a hash rate of up to 580 gigahashes per second (GH/s), a power efficiency of up to 26 joules per terahash (J/TH), and the ability to support up to 256 integrated circuits per chain, as well as on-chip temperature and voltage sensing.
As a result, a mining system comprised of 256 Intel Blockscale ASIC chips would allegedly output approximately 148 TH/s while consuming approximately 3,860 watts (W). The current global market leader, Bitmainflagship ,’s air-cooled mining system, outputs 140 TH/s with an energy consumption of 3010 W, resulting in 21.5 J/TH power efficiency.
Due to the present global chip scarcity, the bitcoin mining sector is suffering from an insufficient supply of ASICs. Apart from competing directly with market leaders and attempting to provide a more energy-efficient product, Intel will arguably bring value to the industry in the short to medium term by boosting the availability of miners. Long-term competition will shift to performance and cost of ownership as constraints are reduced.
In addition, Intel’s shipments will include a reference hardware design and software stack to help customers get started with system development. Argo Blockchain, Block, Inc., Hive Blockchain, and GRIID Infrastructure are among the first mining firms to receive Intel’s upcoming chip, which will be available in Q3 2022. Intel stated that beginning in 2023, it will collaborate with and supply prospective clients who share the company’s sustainable aims.
Intel made headlines in January when it announced plans to present a “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient bitcoin mining ASIC” at the ISSCC conference. The panel discussed Intel’s previous ASIC explorations, and the company announced in the same month that its new chip, the Blockscale ASIC, would ship this year. BITCOIN MINING CHIP, BLOCKSCALE