Intel Discontinues Bitcoin-Mining Blockscale Chips, No Future Gens Announced - Tom's Hardware

18/4/23, 12:04 Intel Discontinues Bitcoin-Mining Blockscale Chips, No Future Gens Announced | Tom's Hardware
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Intel Discontinues Bitcoin-Mining Blockscale Chips, No

Future Gens Announced
By Paul Alcorn published about 2 hours ago
Came in late, leaving too early.
   Comments (2)
(Image credit: Intel)
It's been just a year since Intel officially announced its Bitcoin-mining Blockscale ASICs, but
today the company announced the end of life of its first-gen Blockscale 1000-series chips
without announcing any follow-up generations of the chips. We spoke with Intel on the
matter, and the company told Tom's Hardware that “As we prioritize our investments in IDM
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-discontinues-bitcoin-mining-blockscale-chips-no-future-gens-announced 1/12
2.0, we have end-of-lifed the Intel Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC while we continue to support
our Blockscale customers.”
Intel's statement cites the company's tighter focus on its IDM 2.0 operations as the reason for
ending the Blockscale ASICs, a frequent refrain in many of its statements as it has exited
several businesses amid company-wide belt-tightening. We also asked Intel if it planned to
exit the Bitcoin ASIC business entirely, but the company responded, "We continue to monitor
market opportunities."
In the original announcement that the company would enter the blockchain market, then-
graphics-chief Raja Koduri noted that the company had created a Custom Compute Group
within the AXG graphics unit to support the Bitcoin ASICs and "additional emerging
technology." However, Intel recently restructured the AXG group, and Koduri left the company
shortly thereafter. We asked Intel about the fate of the Custom Compute Group, but it says it
has no organizational changes to share at this time.
(Image credit: Intel)
Intel hasn't announced any next-gen Bitcoin mining products and its Blockscale ASIC landing
pages are now all inactive, but its statement implies that it is leaving the door open for future
opportunities if they arise. Intel's initial entry into the market for bitcoin-mining chips came at
an inopportune time, as its chips finally became available right as Bitcoin valuations crashed
at the end of the last crypto craze, and Intel's apparent exit from the market comes as Bitcoin
is back on the upswing — it recently cleared $30,000 for the first time in nearly a year.
Intel's Bitcoin-mining chips initially came into the public eye under the Bonanza Mine
codename it used for its R&D chips that were never commercialized, but the company later
announced it would enter the blockchain market and summarily launched a second-gen
model named 'Blockscale" to select large-scale mining companies like BLOCK, GRIID
Infrastructure, and Argo Blockchain, among others.
Aside from exceptionally competitive performance relative to competing Bitcoin-mining chips,

Blockscale's big value prop stemmed from the stability of Intel's chip-fabbing resources.
Several large industrial mining companies signed large long-term deals for a steady supply of
Blockscale ASICs, thus circumventing the volatility with the mostly China-based manufacturers
that engaged in wild pricing manipulations based on Bitcoin valuations, were subject to tariffs,
and suffered from supply disruptions and shortages, not to mention the increased costs of
logistics and shipping from China.
(Image credit: Intel )
Intel tells us that it will continue to serve its existing Boockscale customers, implying it will
satisfy its existing long-term contracts. Intel's customers have until October 2023 to order new
chips, and shipments will end in April 2024. Meanwhile, Intel has scrubbed nearly all of the
landing and product pages for the Blockscale chips from its website.
Intel's latest move comes on the heels of a cost-cutting spree — the company sold off its
server-building business last week, killed off its networking switch business, ended its 5G
modems, wound down its Optane Memory production, jettisoned the company's drone
business and sold its SSD storage unit to SK Hynix.
Intel's cost-cutting also applies to numerous other projects, as Intel has also shelved plans for
a mega-lab in Oregon and canceled its planned development center in Haifa. The company
has also trimmed some programs, like its RISC-V pathfinder program, and streamlined its data
center graphics roadmap by axing the Rialto Bridge GPUs and delaying its Falcon Shores chips
to 2025.
It's unclear it Intel will continue to make further cuts to its far-flung businesses, but it is clear
that the company is committed to slimming down to increase its focus on its core
competencies as it weathers some of the worst market conditions in decades, not to mention
intense competition from multiple foes.
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Paul Alcorn
Deputy Managing Editor
Paul Alcorn is the Deputy Managing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He writes news and
reviews on CPUs, storage and enterprise hardware.
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 SEE ALL COMMENTS (2)
2 COMMENTS COMMENT FROM THE FORUMS 
gg83
Lmao! This makes me think they never wanted to do it in the first place and it was just to
appease the stupid investors.
REPLY 
teodoreh
"Came in late, leaving too early." should be their next motto.
Solid State disks
mobile processors
Mining chips
Next stop: Graphics cards
REPLY 
VIEW ALL 2 COMMENTS 
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18/4/23, 12:04 Intel Discontinues Bitcoin-Mining Blockscale Chips, No Future Gens Announced | Tom's Hardware

Intel Discontinues Bitcoin-Mining Blockscale Chips, No

Came in late, leaving too early.

(Image credit: Intel)

(Image credit: Intel)

Aside from exceptionally competitive performance relative to competing Bitcoin-mining chips,

(Image credit: Intel )

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MOST POPULAR MOST SHARED

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3 Intel Discontinues Bitcoin-Mining Blockscale Chips, No Future Gens Announced

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