With a new chip created to mine cryptocurrencies, Intel is putting money into blockchain technology.
The chipmaker said on Friday that it will begin selling the chip customized to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies later this year.
The first of its customers are Block (earlier known as Square) and mining businesses, Agro Blockchain and Griid Infrastructure.
Cryptocurrency mining is the process of recording transactions on a worldwide shared database called the blockchain.
The first miner to complete a difficult computational problem is rewarded with a new coin.
The company plans to “contribute to the development of blockchain technologies,” according to Raja M Koduri, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group.
“We are going to engage and promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem, which will assist us in moving forward with this technology responsibly and sustainably.” Koduri added.
He went on to say that they were aware that some blockchains required a massive quantity of computer power, which translated to a substantial amount of energy in the end.
The announcement continues, “Our clients are asking for scalable and long-term solutions, which is why we are concentrating our efforts on realizing the full potential of blockchain through the development of energy-efficient computing technologies at scale.”
Intel will debut its first crypto-focused chip, dubbed “blockchain accelerator,” later this year.
According to Koduri, the mining ASICs will have “1000x better performance per watt than conventional GPUs” for SHA-256 mining.
To decrease the impact that restricting supply of current goods would have, the chips are developed on a “small piece of silicon.” Intel also announced the formation of a custom compute group within its Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics business unit to design microchips for blockchain and other computing applications.
According to the Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index from Cambridge University, cryptocurrency mining consumes a significant amount of energy, with a projected rate of 125 terawatt hours each year.
That’s more than the power consumption of Norway in 2020, according to Energy Information Administration data.
