Intel Discontinues Bitcoin Mining Chip Series

[FP91G]

Chipmaking heavyweight Intel (INTC) is ending production of its bitcoin mining chip series, the company said in a statement to CoinDesk on Tuesday.
"As we prioritize our investments in IDM 2.0, we have end-of-lifed the Intel Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC [application specific integrated circuit] while we continue to support our Blockscale customers," an Intel spokesperson said.
The news was first reported by Tom's Hardware.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-discontinues-bitcoin-mining-blockscale-chips-no-future-gens-announced
No orders will be taken after Oct. 20 and the last product will be shipped no later than April 20, 2024, according to a document on Intel's website.
The company announced its foray into bitcoin mining about a year ago, with its first customers for the chips, dubbed Blocksale, being Argo Blockchain (ARBK), Block (SQ), Griid Infrastructure and Hive Blockchain (HIVE).
https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/04/18/intel-discontinues-bitcoin-mining-chip-series/

[darkv0rt3x]

Or either they were not being able to keep up with the competition, which I believe it is probably way ahead of them or some other reason can be hidden. In a market which seems to be increasing by the year, why would they opt out? Is it extremely demanding? I don't doubt but without more competition, the existing companies will be more comfortable holding the title of the titans in the business. Without competition, things tend to stall instead of progressing!
But I think this is part of the Evolution Theory doing its job, I guess!

[panganib999]

Or either they were not being able to keep up with the competition, which I believe it is probably way ahead of them or some other reason can be hidden. In a market which seems to be increasing by the year, why would they opt out? Is it extremely demanding? I don't doubt but without more competition, the existing companies will be more comfortable holding the title of the titans in the business. Without competition, things tend to stall instead of progressing!
But I think this is part of the Evolution Theory doing its job, I guess!

Perhaps because they wanted to put more effort and manpower into creating chips for other points of customers. Gaming for instance, which has been their biggest suit since time immemorial. The fact of the matter is that they are slowly losing to AMD and they need to do something about it before the latter breaks their necks and claims the competition for good. Since gaming is their biggest market it just makes sense to put more focus on it. But if this weren't the reason I'd be confused too. In any case they'd still carry out support for Blocksale so it's not like the end of the world or something. Miners with blocksale chips in the past will still be getting support from them although the certainties are a little vague in my opinion.

[safar1980]

Who compared the characteristics of Intel Blockscale 1000 chips with competitors?
Their video cards have not conquered the market either. Intel talks about cutting costs, but the product has already been released and tested. It only needs to be sold.
It turns out that they have an expensive production?

[karabiber]

Blockscale ASICs were designed to help mining companies achieve their sustainability goals and hash rate targets but we can say that they have failed with the price of Bitcoin falling gradually over the past 1 year. Companies act to make a profit and they have to consider their costs. Intel's decision may be due to increased operating costs and the loss of popularity of Bitcoin mining. 

Also, ASIC is an expensive chip and inflates costs. Intel has actually been trying to reshape its financial resources for some time now. Stopping ASIC chips for Bitcoin mining could also be part of this strategy. The company is also trying to build a massive chip and data center in Europe.

[zanezane]

Who compared the characteristics of Intel Blockscale 1000 chips with competitors?
Their video cards have not conquered the market either. Intel talks about cutting costs, but the product has already been released and tested. It only needs to be sold.
It turns out that they have an expensive production?

The intel blockscale 1000 is a high-performance computing platform designed for data centers and other large-scale computing applicators. It is based on Intel's Xeon Scalable processor and is designed to provide scalable performance, high reliability, and ease of management.

as for intel's cost cutting measures, it's not entirely clear what specifically they are referring to. However, it's worth noting that Intel has faced increasing competition from rivals such as AMD and Nvidia in recent years, and has been working to streamline its operation and reduce the costs in order to remain competitive.

[DaveF]

I mentioned it elsewhere, but part of the new intel strategy is to manufacture chips for people.
This does lead to the issue of people not wanting to have you make their chips if you are making a competing product.

Bitmain / Canaan / Bitfury / and others are all fabless. Did someone at intel do the math and figure our that they can make more money just making chips for other people then designing the chips and miners and selling and supporting them.

Might just come down to something like that. There are a lot of things that go into doing the entire miner or even just designing and making the chips. If someone hands you the ASIC design and says give me 10 million of these chips and you can make a couple of dollars a chip it might just be a better business deal for Intel

-Dave

[joniboini]

as for intel's cost cutting measures, it's not entirely clear what specifically they are referring to. However, it's worth noting that Intel has faced increasing competition from rivals such as AMD and Nvidia in recent years, and has been working to streamline its operation and reduce the costs in order to remain competitive.

Are they doing massive layoffs like other companies out there? As far as I know, while they're not doing great they still have decent capital, not as bad as AMD when they were close to bankruptcy. Their investment to open a new fab is probably taking the majority of their spending so experimental products being stopped is understandable though.

Intel's decision may be due to increased operating costs and the loss of popularity of Bitcoin mining. 

I'm not sure how mining popularity is decreasing with the increase in global hash rate though. At the very least, it is not surprising if big farms are still buying and building new farms to mine Bitcoin. As for individuals or small miners, they are probably not the target for this product in the first place. CMIIW.

[safar1980]

Who compared the characteristics of Intel Blockscale 1000 chips with competitors?
Their video cards have not conquered the market either. Intel talks about cutting costs, but the product has already been released and tested. It only needs to be sold.
It turns out that they have an expensive production?

The intel blockscale 1000 is a high-performance computing platform designed for data centers and other large-scale computing applicators. It is based on Intel's Xeon Scalable processor and is designed to provide scalable performance, high reliability, and ease of management.

as for intel's cost cutting measures, it's not entirely clear what specifically they are referring to. However, it's worth noting that Intel has faced increasing competition from rivals such as AMD and Nvidia in recent years, and has been working to streamline its operation and reduce the costs in order to remain competitive.

If we take the meaning of the article literally, then the company is closing the production of chips because further development, sales and warranty service will not bring profit for the company. This means that they lost to their competitors, although the company has great resources to continue to fight in the market and make decisions not only for companies.

[mikeywith]

but we can say that they have failed with the price of Bitcoin falling gradually over the past 1 year. Companies act to make a profit and they have to consider their costs. Intel's decision may be due to increased operating costs and the loss of popularity of Bitcoin mining. 

It's easy to blame Bitcoin price for such failure but that's far from the truth, TSMC and Samsung still make a dozen chips for their mining gears manufacturers, and Bitmain and Whatsminer made trucks full of money in recent years despite the drop in BTC price, they both still sell their ASIC miners at prices way above cost price.

Intel walked into the room with their big boy pants showing off some crazy efficient numbers, they made everyone thinks that they will dominate the field, but they failed massively to their rivals who have a lot more experience in designing ASIC chips which so happen to be very different from the GPU chips.

I am not happy to read the news tho, I want nothing but more competition in the mining sector, but things happen.

[dansus021]

I dont know why but when Intel joined the trend it seems to fail, If we take a look back couple of year ago intel joined chip for mobile phones but after year struggling they decide to give up on mobile chip and then they want made a discrete GPU and struggle for couple of year and last year they launched their external GPU but the market seems ignore it

and now bitcoin chip I think they already lose with biggest Bitcoin chip manufacturer like bitmain and avalon. But i do aggree with @mikeywith we need more competition in this series of bitcoin chip industries

more competitor meaning cheap to buy for customer right?

[FUCKBSVFUCK]

Not all people are that much interested in mining ASICs like Intel. They're going to want a lot more for themselves. 
 
Intel has already started to offer their products and at least part of the company already has an integrated GPU (GPU) which can make an ASIC to take mining GPU mining from hardware. 
 
The company did say that chips like the one you mentioned are going to be supported by GPUs, with that said, the mining GPUs also won't be fully accepted because the process of GPUs is not fully adopted.   
 
Not really interested or not. GPUs aren't included.

[safar1980]

There will be no boredom in the ASIC sales market.
One large company has left this market and Block has already announced its new mining chips.
It's very expensive, but Jack Dorsey probably calculated everything and knows how not to make the mistakes of Intel.

Announcement
Update on our bitcoin mining ASIC programм
https://www.mining.build/update-on-our-bitcoin-mining-asic-program/

[NotFuzzyWarm]

There will be no boredom in the ASIC sales market.
One large company has left this market and Block has already announced its new mining chips.
It's very expensive, but Jack Dorsey probably calculated everything and knows how not to make the mistakes of Intel.

Announcement
Update on our bitcoin mining ASIC programм
https://www.mining.build/update-on-our-bitcoin-mining-asic-program/

The one line in that update that could be a downfall:

Block has longstanding ASIC design experience, having made ASICs for our Square point of sale solutions for years.

Chips for POS applications are inherently very low power devices. Mining chips are the exact opposite and generally aim to pack as many cores onto 1 die as possible and run them as fast as possible. Designing for the required high power density and sustained high junction temps in the chip calls for an entirely different skill set vs designing low power chips that *maybe* pull a peak power of 500mw and when idle under 10mw or less.

Hopefully they will be taking a very careful look at the IP that Block purchased from Intel along with Intel's remaining stock of chips.

[hymperion]

I do not agree that interest in ASIC mining has decreased to date, the hashrate is at an all-time high and continues to rise.
If you want to enter this market you can't just do it when BTC is skyrocketing and Bitmain is out of S19s to ship, this makes me think it is a poor alternative than Bitmain or Caanan.
intel would like to be first in class, but as with GPUs it was almost a flop perhaps with asic they didn't have the desired results.

That bitcoin is at $30,000 is no excuse not to produce cars, because others make and sell them. With the release of an ASIC inferior to the competitors they would have made a bad impression and it's easier to blame it on the volatility of the crypto market.

[darkv0rt3x]

Or either they were not being able to keep up with the competition, which I believe it is probably way ahead of them or some other reason can be hidden. In a market which seems to be increasing by the year, why would they opt out? Is it extremely demanding? I don't doubt but without more competition, the existing companies will be more comfortable holding the title of the titans in the business. Without competition, things tend to stall instead of progressing!
But I think this is part of the Evolution Theory doing its job, I guess!

Perhaps because they wanted to put more effort and manpower into creating chips for other points of customers. Gaming for instance, which has been their biggest suit since time immemorial. The fact of the matter is that they are slowly losing to AMD and they need to do something about it before the latter breaks their necks and claims the competition for good. Since gaming is their biggest market it just makes sense to put more focus on it. But if this weren't the reason I'd be confused too. In any case they'd still carry out support for Blocksale so it's not like the end of the world or something. Miners with blocksale chips in the past will still be getting support from them although the certainties are a little vague in my opinion.

Most likely you're right. the point is that in terms of market competition, is less one in the way. Mining is surely a highly competitive business but the more competition the more drive to research, innovate, evolve, etc.

[safar1980]

There will be no boredom in the ASIC sales market.
One large company has left this market and Block has already announced its new mining chips.
It's very expensive, but Jack Dorsey probably calculated everything and knows how not to make the mistakes of Intel.

Announcement
Update on our bitcoin mining ASIC programм
https://www.mining.build/update-on-our-bitcoin-mining-asic-program/

The one line in that update that could be a downfall:

Block has longstanding ASIC design experience, having made ASICs for our Square point of sale solutions for years.

Chips for POS applications are inherently very low power devices. Mining chips are the exact opposite and generally aim to pack as many cores onto 1 die as possible and run them as fast as possible. Designing for the required high power density and sustained high junction temps in the chip calls for an entirely different skill set vs designing low power chips that *maybe* pull a peak power of 500mw and when idle under 10mw or less.

Hopefully they will be taking a very careful look at the IP that Block purchased from Intel along with Intel's remaining stock of chips.

Block is the former Square. I didn't find any information about how Block developed anything from chips before. Most likely they bought the technology from intel and will try to make 3nm chips. And Intel will at least partially compensate for the losses.

[Weezenhofnar]

The decision comes as the company focuses on investing in its IDM 2.0 program.

While Intel will continue to support its Blockscale customers, it will no longer take new orders after October 20th, 2023, and the last product will be shipped no later than April 20th, 2024. This marks a significant shift in the Bitcoin mining industry, as one of the world's leading chipmakers withdraws from the market.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

The decision comes as the company focuses on investing in its IDM 2.0 program.

While Intel will continue to support its Blockscale customers, it will no longer take new orders after October 20th, 2023, and the last product will be shipped no later than April 20th, 2024. This marks a significant shift in the Bitcoin mining industry, as one of the world's leading chipmakers withdraws from the market.

Nope.
Considering Intel was just entering the mining ASIC market, at best they were an insignificant blip. Them trying and then quickly leaving the market hardly matters.

[so98nn]

Or either they were not being able to keep up with the competition, which I believe it is probably way ahead of them or some other reason can be hidden. In a market which seems to be increasing by the year, why would they opt out? Is it extremely demanding? I don't doubt but without more competition, the existing companies will be more comfortable holding the title of the titans in the business. Without competition, things tend to stall instead of progressing!
But I think this is part of the Evolution Theory doing its job, I guess!

Frankly speaking, competition can drive the prices up, and that makes them profits. At least the original equipment manufacturer will benefit from this a lot. Since intel is going under the weather here it seems they are shifting their business away from the bitcoin or mining area.

Possible cause, conflict in the regulatory bodies about bitcoin and its infra structure. Intel might be straight about their decision, what if bitcoin is completely restricted, and mining is completely banned in the future?

It would be catastrophic to the business.