The California-based technology company and the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, Intel, has revealed the company will “contribute to the development of blockchain technologies” by offering “energy-efficient accelerators.” Intel executive Raja M. Koduri explained that the company expects its circuit innovations will deliver “1000x better performance per watt” than today’s GPU or SHA256-based mining equipment.
Intel Commits to Blockchain Technology
On Friday, Senior Vice President of Intel’s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group, Raja M. Koduri, posted a blog post about blockchain technology and the “new custom computing group.” Koduri explained that Intel is fully aware that there are blockchains that “translate into an immense amount of energy.” The Intel executive said the company’s customers demand “scalable and sustainable solutions.”
“Intel will engage and promote an open and secure blockchain ecosystem and will help advance this technology in a responsible and sustainable way,” Koduri’s blog post explains.
Intel’s Koduri further added that the company’s first product will be delivered later in 2022. The first companies to receive Intel’s blockchain accelerator are Jack Dorsey’s Block (formerly Square), Argo Blockchain, and Griid. Koduri noted that Intel Labs has focused on “reliable cryptography, hashing techniques, and ultra-low voltage circuitry” for decades. The Intel executive expects the company’s accelerator to have better performance per watt.
“We expect that our circuit innovations will deliver a blockchain accelerator that has over 1000x better performance per watt than mainstream GPUs for SHA256 based mining,” Koduri’s blog post insists.
To reinforce these concepts, Intel has formed a new custom computing group within the company’s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics business unit. “The goal of this team is to create custom silicon platforms optimized for customer workloads, including blockchain and other custom accelerated supercomputing opportunities at the edge,” concludes the blog post from Koduri.
