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- 1 Crypto miners utilize their high computational power to generate revenue from AI.
- 2 Many crypto miners are repurposing facilities to accommodate AI.
Every sector tries to accommodate and leverage AI; crypto miners diversify into multiple vertices, including AI. Miners are repurposing their high-power mining rigs providing optimal computing infrastructure to meet the rising demand for image and video rendering services, gaming, and artificial intelligence.
The Amalgamation of Crypto and Artificial Intelligence
JPMorgan analysts’ August 21 report sheds light on the amalgamation of the crypto industry and artificial intelligence. It refers to the booming AI industry and the buzz around it. How this rapid growth opened a new avenue for high-performance computing, and how miners’ high-powered graphics processing units (GPUs) previously used for mining are used for these purposes.
With volatility in crypto prices, increasing power prices, and high hash rates, it is a no-brainer for the miners to look for new revenue streams. Miners are now building high-powered data centers to leverage the ever-increasing computational demand for AI. In 2022, Hut8 bought five traditional yet high-powered data centers. They converted some to mine ETH while others to meet computational demand.
During the crypto winter of 2022, most crypto mining machines were not in use because the price to mine crypto was much more than the actual market price of the currency. But the GPUs in the machines were delegated to carry the computational burden and train generative AI systems – as the Wall Street Journal reported on July 2, 2023.
Crypto Mining 2.0 and Artificial Intelligence
If AI can transform the crypto-mining industry, it should be taken with a pinch of salt. But both these technologies can significantly benefit from one another. Crypto mining requires powerful computational resources and customized hardware to mine. On the other hand, AI leverages data processing, machine learning, and high-performance computing to solve the prompts.
The amalgamation of these technologies brings forth crypto mining 2.0. While comparing, it becomes evident that both technologies have unique requirements, with high computational power remaining common. Altcoin miners can include AI for crypto mining, but Bitcoin miners cannot use this technology.
99% of digital asset mining involves specialized ASIC mining rigs for mining Bitcoin. These cannot be used to share computational power, nor can AI mine BTC. Quantum Blockchain Technologies (QBT), a U.K. research firm, unveiled “Method B,” which uses AI to predict future blocks and provides better hash detection. Through this method, QBT tried to use AI to mine Bitcoin.
Even if AI cannot directly help Bitcoin miners, they can use their expertise to build robust data centers for AI. Their experience in building and maintaining mining facilities can be readily used in building data centers. As AI is getting stronger, the requirement for computational power is slowly surpassing the realities of silicon chips.
Crypto miners invest heavily in building and maintaining a mining facility used only to mine crypto. Until now, they were unaware that they were all sitting on a gold mine. With high-powered computers and GPUs, the ability to process massive data can be used to solve preemptive AI issues and be a revenue source for them.
However, companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are capable enough to have their data centers. New and smaller companies might leverage these crypto-mining facilities and use their computational power to build better AI applications.
The relationship between crypto and AI would be symbiotic, where AI would leverage mining rigs’ computational power, and crypto mining facilities would have an additional source of revenue.
Nancy J. Allen is a crypto enthusiast, with a major in macroeconomics and minor in business statistics. She believes that cryptocurrencies inspire people to be their own banks, and step aside from traditional monetary exchange systems. She is also intrigued by blockchain technology and its functioning. She frequently researches, and posts content on the top altcoins, their theoretical working principles and technical price predictions.
