Intel Confirms Entry into the Crypto Space with New Custom Compute Group, First Blockchain Accelerator Shipping This Year

[Tsing]

Image: Intel



Intel has officially confirmed that it’s delving into the blockchain space with the creation of a new custom compute group, one that will be charged with contributing to the development of blockchain technologies and energy-efficient accelerators.



The new initiative was relayed by Raja M. Koduri, senior vice president and general manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group at Intel, who shared an opinion piece explaining the increasing relevance of blockchain technology and its role in allowing users to track and own their digital creations. Noting that his company is fully aware of the high energy demands of the technology, Koduri confirmed that Intel would be shipping its first blockchain accelerator later this year, one that aims to be a more energy-efficient and sustainable solution.



Intel has teased circuit innovations that...

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[Grimlakin]

If this can take away market share and out perform for its life cycle what video cards do this could be the saving grace that the pc enthusiast market needs.

 

[DrezKill]

See this actually seems like something that could help keep mining and miners away from real graphics cards. I'm not sure Intel will really amount to anything with their GPUs, but this on the other hand could actually be good for something.

 

[MadMummy76]

Making mining more efficient doesn't solve the problem of blockchain being an energy hog. Miners won't mine less, they'll mine more if it is more efficient. It's a bottomless pit.

 

[Riccochet]

Knowing Intel it'll only do about 80-100 Mh/s and cost $5000.

 

[Brian_B]

See this actually seems like something that could help keep mining and miners away from real graphics cards.

It probably is a version of their video card, if I were just guessing, especially since Raja is involved. And since they are going out to a third party fab, they will have the same problem as AMD/nVidia - you only have so much production, so what do you prioritize? Whatever brings in the best margin.

And whatever that is, like MadMummy says, will get eaten by the endless pit that is mining. So either they make these mining accelerators and don't have production quota for video cards, and gamers get assed out, or they make video cards and miners buy them all up anyway, and gamers get assed out. At least until the "seemingly infinite returns" bubble of crypto pops.

 

[Grimlakin]

I don't know... IF Intel makes a good mining card that is power efficient, and at a 'reasonable' price... I could see building a cheap box to feed such a thing and set it on the corner to churn away mining. Even if it's profit was a couple hundred a month I wouldn't object.

What we need to REALLY get mining going... and I can't believe I'm doing this but a thought exercise it is.

If I could easily have a piece of software that mines, trades, and deposits the residuals on a monthly or quarterly basis that would be adequate for me.

Problem is every software solution wants you to put money into some wallet hosted by X. Or secured by Y, then when you want to sell you have to jump through hoops to do the sell, and the trials in figuring it all out at first make it not worth while to users like me for the long term. If i can't realize profit from the work within a couple weeks it's not worth the investment/effort from a casual user basis.

Now as I said if you mined and it was auto converted to fiat currency and deposited with appropriate tax deducted based on laws of your region/nation then I would be much more interested.

 

[MadMummy76]

It probably is a version of their video card, if I were just guessing, especially since Raja is involved. And since they are going out to a third party fab, they will have the same problem as AMD/nVidia - you only have so much production, so what do you prioritize? Whatever brings in the best margin.

And whatever that is, like MadMummy says, will get eaten by the endless pit that is mining. So either they make these mining accelerators and don't have production quota for video cards, and gamers get assed out, or they make video cards and miners buy them all up anyway, and gamers get assed out. At least until the "seemingly infinite returns" bubble of crypto pops.

The problem is that it won't pop on its own before it's too late. It'll start affecting other industries as well, actually it already does. Imagine not getting access to medical equipment because someone here wants to set up a mining rig.

 

[Riccochet]

The problem is that it won't pop on its own before it's too late. It'll start affecting other industries as well, actually it already does. Imagine not getting access to medical equipment because someone here wants to set up a mining rig.

How in God's name do you come up with this crap? Seriously. Now it's medical equipment will be effected because someone bought a bunch of GPU's to mine with?

Dude, stop.

Now I'm going to buy 8-10 3080Ti's for mining to replace my 5 year old cards. I wasn't going to. But comments like this really just make me want to do it for lul's when I post a pic of my stack of cards.

 

[Grimlakin]

How in God's name do you come up with this crap? Seriously. Now it's medical equipment will be effected because someone bought a bunch of GPU's to mine with?

Dude, stop.

Now I'm going to buy 8-10 3080Ti's for mining to replace my 5 year old cards. I wasn't going to. But comments like this really just make me want to do it for lul's when I post a pic of my stack of cards.

madMummy's point here is that. The fab time and resources that went into making a product that is otherwise consumed for Mining, could be going to make other product. Be that a piece for some piece of medical equipment, or a toy robot for timmah to play with.

It's a valid point considering the sheer volume of technology hardware being consumed just for math. (Mining.)

To you it is valid and worth while because those cards bring you a ROI. You manage to extract more money than you put into them after all costs are accounted for.

You are using your cards in effect as a business consumes resources. MadMummy's vitriol is around the perception that the money you are generating is based on zero actual value.

It's akin to... ummm... I really don't know something that generates income, but offers no tangible service or product. Ummm... Oh I know... you're like being your own Visa Company, just a node as part of a larger whole. Visa makes money by processing transactions and really that's about it. All of it is designed around processing transactions and offering protected ways to transport resources. Bit and other 'coins' of that sort are just leasing your processing time in order to track and secure resources. In this case a tradable digital currency. The way they avoid paying more to people for their compute time is by making the equations themselves more difficult.

Imagine of the top 10 compute centers bent their will to mining hash coins for 1 month and that is all that they did.

The relative difficulty of mining those coins would either become so difficult that no private person could reasonably afford it and it would take a massive amount of hardware to make it profitable. OR those mining currencies would bankrupt themselves because they couldn't meet the payouts that were earned.

Theoretically of course.

 

[MadMummy76]

How in God's name do you come up with this crap? Seriously. Now it's medical equipment will be effected because someone bought a bunch of GPU's to mine with?

Dude, stop.

Now I'm going to buy 8-10 3080Ti's for mining to replace my 5 year old cards. I wasn't going to. But comments like this really just make me want to do it for lul's when I post a pic of my stack of cards.

Thinking in systems, is a problem, I see.

Individually one person buying a few GPUs won't matter, but you are not alone in doing it are you?

I've explained this a billion times, but here we go again: Mining any blockchain based currency uses huge amounts of resources. Not just the electricity which is a problem in of itself, but the hardware that is siphoned out from the market. But medical equipment don't have GPUs? Well actually some do, but that's besides the point. Cars can't be used for mining, but now we are seeing shortages of cars, or even semi trucks due to the chip shortage. Obviously mining is not the only contributing factor to the shortage but it's a big one, and the one that literally does not have any benefits to society. It provides nothing despite being a huge black hole for resources.

Of course mining to you has a ROI if you decide to ignore everything outside of your own short term gains. The point is that you are not providing a service or creating value for all the energy and resources used. Yes, I've heard the "but gaming does nothing either" argument probably before you started mining. Yes I was speaking out against it for at least 6 or 7 years now. Except gaming is entertainment, you can not overestimate the stabilizing value of entertainment on society. While crypto and now NFTs are destabilizing even on a good day.

The only two conclusions I can draw is that you either don't understand or decide to ignore the problem because of short term monetary gains. But why should you stop while a ton of others do it too? Hopefully because you grow a conscience. Someone has to start.

It's not as if this is putting food on your table it is literally just a bit of snack money for you. Someone on the brink of poverty can't get into mining. It is just a game for the middle class and up. So there is no excuse for doing this crap.

It's funny how the type of people who used to cry "people should not get something for nothing" ie. welfare, are perfectly happy with getting something for nothing now. Actually worse than nothing because of the immense waste. We'd be better off if you got paid for doing nothing instead of cryptomining.

 

[Uvilla]

In 2 years: crypto division posted losses of 1.1 billion, division to be unwind in the next 6 months. Intel, probably.

 

[Riccochet]

It's funny how the type of people who used to cry "people should not get something for nothing" ie. welfare, are perfectly happy with getting something for nothing now. Actually worse than nothing because of the immense waste. We'd be better off if you got paid for doing nothing instead of cryptomining.

Cry me a river. You sound like someone that missed the boat and your salty about it. Or don't understand how markets work. If you think it's going to tank and isn't worth anything you should have no problem putting your hard earned money where your mouth is and shorting it or taking some put contracts.

I'll retire early thanks to help from crypto. That's not "valueless". I didn't get "something for nothing". I invested my hard earned money on it.

 

[Brian_B]

I don't have any altruistic issues with mining.

I just believe that you never get something for nothing. And right now, the entirety of blockchain crypto value is based on ... nothing. Now, you can say, so is the US Dollar - which is true, to a point. The US Dollar also has the backing of the worlds largest economy and oldest democracy - crypto has .. Elon Musk and a meme dog?

That isn't to say crypto couldn't retain it's value - it could. But I think it's more than likely going to burst, leave a lot of regular joes holding the bag, while a few people get lucky to not go down with the ship. The people with significant money aren't at risk - they know better than to put all their eggs in one basket. It'll just be the people who hear the world Crypto, know of someone's cousin who made some money doing nothing, and all try to get on the gravy train -- and lose out big time.

All of the things that I think crypto would be great at, it seems are the exact things it tries so hard to avoid. Theft of crypto shouldn't even be possible, yet it happens all the time. Transactions should be 100% accountable and traceable, yet it's the leading method of laundering money and purchasing black market goods. And there are so many middle men right now it's ridiculous.

It's free money now, get while the getting is good - just make sure you got a backstop because I can't see any way that bubble doesn't pop and burn an awful lot of people on the way out. I won't partake - I don't believe in something for nothing, and I've never been afraid to work hard -- a job well done that I'm proud of means more to me than the money, and while that will never make me rich (I'm not that good, I won't make that claim), I am very fortunate that I get paid well enough to do just that.

 

[David_Schroth]

The sha256 algorithm is for directly mining BTC, which has not been minable by GPUs since late 2013 due to asics.

As an interesting side note, this site would not exist I didn't get into mining 10+ years ago ;-)

 

[MadMummy76]

Cry me a river. You sound like someone that missed the boat and your salty about it.

You think I haven't heard that gem a million times? It won't get any truer no matter how much it is repeated. You'd have half a point if I just now realized there is money to make on mining. But I didn't, I did so many years ago, and decided it is unacceptable to do it. Not because I couldn't, or was too lazy to do so. I actually started it when ethereum was brand spanking new. I just quit when I realized WTF am I even doing.

Or don't understand how markets work. If you think it's going to tank and isn't worth anything you should have no problem putting your hard earned money where your mouth is and shorting it or taking some put contracts.

Why am I wasting my time when you still can't see past how it affects you.

I'll retire early thanks to help from crypto. That's not "valueless". I didn't get "something for nothing". I invested my hard earned money on it.

Again it's still "me me me me me me me me" Sorry, but you getting early retirement is less than valueless for society.
Actual investments have a market driving factor, "investing" into crypto does not create anything of value, it benefits you and hurts everyone else. How can I say this any clearer so you can understand?

 

[MadMummy76]

The sha256 algorithm is for directly mining BTC, which has not been minable by GPUs since late 2013 due to asics.

As an interesting side note, this site would not exist I didn't get into mining 10+ years ago ;-)

It's like the "efficient" NFTs they try pushing nowadays. Yeah, we are burning down all forests, we are just using more efficient flamethrowers for it.
asic mining still contributes to chip shortages and energy consumption

 

[Riccochet]

You think I haven't heard that gem a million times? It won't get any truer no matter how much it is repeated. You'd have half a point if I just now realized there is money to make on mining. But I didn't, I did so many years ago, and decided it is unacceptable to do it. Not because I couldn't, or was too lazy to do so. I actually started it when ethereum was brand spanking new. I just quit when I realized WTF am I even doing.

Why am I wasting my time when you still can't see past how it affects you.

Again it's still "me me me me me me me me" Sorry, but you getting early retirement is less than valueless for society.
Actual investments have a market driving factor, "investing" into crypto does not create anything of value, it benefits you and hurts everyone else. How can I say this any clearer so you can understand?

How is retiring early "less than valueless"? I'm not Scrooge McDuck with a money bin. I'll have to spend that money on goods and services to live. I have no children so I'll most likely spend it all before I'm dead. That puts it right back in to the economy in the hands of others.

You do understand how the economy works? Right?