The usual way of mining cryptocurrencies is through intensive use of GPUs. For this reason, it is sometimes difficult to get a GPU as miners keep accumulating.
On the other hand, using GPUs is a very inefficient way of mining, because it consumes a lot of energy and there is no quick return on investment.
To help solve the problem of how much energy cryptocurrency mining consumes, Intel has unveiled a chip it calls a “blockchain accelerator”.
For now, not much is known about the chip, except that “It will be a more energy-efficient piece of hardware.”
According to Raja Koduri, vice president of Intel, “We are aware that some blockchains require a huge amount of computing power, which unfortunately translates to an immense amount of energy. Our customers demand scalable and sustainable solutions, so we are focusing our efforts on realizing the full potential of blockchain by developing the most energy-efficient computing technologies at scale.”
And adds: “We hope that our circuit innovations will provide a blockchain accelerator that has over 1,000 times the performance per watt of conventional GPUs for SHA-256 based mining.”
For now, it looks like Intel already has at least two customers: a company called GRIID and Block, formerly known as Square and also owned by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.