After months of spoon-feeding information on its curiously codenamed "Bonanza Mine" approach to blockchain technology, Intel has officially taken the first concrete, product-laden steps in the form of its Blockscale ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit). The announcement comes hot on the heels of several design wins, with cryptocurrency mining heavyweights Argo Blockchain, BLOCK (formerly known as Square), GRIID Infrastructure, and HIVE all inking multi-million-dollar deals for Intel's Blockscale solutions. The products are expected to see first deliveries by Q3 2022. Helped by Intel's decades of expertise in semiconductor design and refinement, as well as cryptographic technologies, the Blockscale ASIC builds on the company's first-generation Bonanza Mine accelerator (BMZ1), which served as a proof of concept for the second Blockscale design. It aims to bring energy-efficient cryptocurrency mining to mining specialist companies focusing on PoW (Proof of Work) workloads, one of the strategies that help secure transactions in blockchain environments. To that end, Intel has created a specific division that handles strategy and product development in this space: the Custom Compute Group, nested within Intel's Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics business unit. “Intel is committed to advancing blockchain technology in a responsible way, and we’re proud to collaborate with and provide solutions to companies that are creating a more sustainable cryptocurrency ecosystem globally," said Jose Rios, general manager of Blockchain and Business Solutions in the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group at Intel. "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.”
Continue reading: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-blockscale-asics
Continue reading: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-blockscale-asics
