American multinational company, Intel has launched a new chip for blockchain applications such as Bitcoin mining and minting Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) to make financial advantages from the emerging usage of cryptocurrencies.
The new chip will ship later this year and the first customers include Block, Twitter founder Mr. Jack Dorsey-led firm that recently changed its name from ‘Square’ to highlight its growing focus on the blockchain. Argo Blockchain and GRIID Infrastructure are also among the early-stage customers for this upcoming product.
Blockchain is a technology that has the potential to enable everyone to own much of the digital content and services they create. It serves as a public ledger that keeps the record of transactions on a network of computers and has grown in prominence in recent years.
Intel states that its chip is an energy-efficient “accelerator” designed to speed up blockchain tasks that require huge amounts of computing power and thereby consume a lot of energy. Intel aims to engage and promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem and thus help advance this technology in a responsible and sustainable way.
Chip designer Nvidia Corp, whose graphics cards are used widely for mining activities, also has a separate chip meant for Ethereum mining.
As a part of furthering its footprint in the space, Intel has also formed a new segment called Custom Compute Group within its Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics business unit. The objective of this team is to build custom silicon platforms optimized for customers’ workloads, including blockchain and other custom accelerated supercomputing opportunities at the edge.
