On March 7, the publicly-listed mining firm Hive Blockchain Technologies announced the company inked a deal with Intel to purchase new ASIC mining chips. Additionally, Hive has formed an agreement with an original design manufacturer (ODM) and a non-binding letter of intent with Compute North. Hive said the company plans to deploy 100 MW of mining capacity to Compute North’s renewable energy facilities in Texas.
Hive buys ASIC chips from Intel and aims to deploy 100 MW in Texas
Blockchain and mining company Hive (TSX.V: HIVE) (Nasdaq: HIVE) has revealed that it has entered into a supply agreement with Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC). Hive will get Intel’s new ASIC mining chips which will be mined in custom-built equipment for the company. The blockchain company claims to have entered into a manufacturing agreement with an ODM specializing in “electronics manufacturing”.
“Hive’s engineering team will draw on its expertise in hardware and software implementation and will work closely with Intel and the ODM partner on the systems integration,” Hive’s announcement notes. “These miners are expected to be delivered over a period of one year starting in the second half of calendar 2022, the effect of which, if they are all installed, would be an expected increase of up to 95% in our aggregate Bitcoin mining hashrate from 1.9 exahash per second.”
In addition to the agreement with Intel, Hive detailed that it has entered into another agreement with Compute North to deploy a 100 MW mining center in Texas. Frank Holmes, Executive Chairman of Hive, said the Compute North team “shares the same commitment to using renewable energy that Hive has embraced since listing as the world’s first publicly traded crypto-miner.”
Mining Company Holds 2,374 Bitcoin, Hive Joins a Slew of Firms Acquiring Intel Chips
Hive says that further details about the 100 MW facility will be announced in the future. Last year, Hive purchased a great deal of mining rigs from Canaan and in mid-October it expanded its data center campus in New Brunswick, Canada, with 40 MW of capacity. The same month, Hive acquired another 6,500 mining rigs from Canaan. Hive holds a balance of 2,374 bitcoin (BTC) as of February 28, 2022, and the company produced 244.4 BTC last month.
Additionally, Hive joins companies like Griid, Argo Blockchain, and Jack Dorsey’s Block (formerly Square) that are considering acquiring ASIC chips from Intel. Intel unveiled its new mining chips in mid-February and claimed that the circuits will deliver 1,000 times the performance of current competitors. Later, at the International Semiconductor Circuits Conference (ISSCC) last month, Intel gave event attendees a glimpse of the “Bonanza Mine BMZ1” blockchain mining chip and of the “Bonanza Mine BMZ2”.
