Nvidia will release a series of new chips CMP: dedicated to the development of ether

In the early morning of February 19, Beijing time, Nvidia announced on Thursday that the company will release a series of new chips designed to mine the second-largest digital cryptocurrency ether.

This new chip is named "CMP", which stands for "Cryptocurrency Mining Processor" (cryptocurrency mining processor). An Nvidia spokesman said the first chips would go on sale in March.

So-called "ether mining" is the process by which computers solve complex mathematical programs to help the cryptocurrency network run, and "miners" earn ether through this process. Ether prices rose to a record high above $1,914 on Thursday, bringing the year-to-date gain to more than 160%.

The ethereum mining algorithm works best on graphics cards, the kind of chips Nvidia is known for. Miners typically buy multiple graphics cards and install them in a single computer in order to maximize their returns.

In the fall of last year, Nvidia released a series of new graphics cards for PC gamers that were so popular that they have been sold out. From the perspective of the entire semiconductor industry, chip supply is also facing a situation of overall shortage.

The news, announced Thursday by Nvidia, suggests that at least some of the demand for the company's chips is coming from cryptocurrency miners, not just gamers.

“The CMP product does not do graphics, it is optimized for optimal mining performance and efficiency, and will be sold through authorized partners,” said Matt Woebering, Nvidia’s head of GeForce marketing, in a blog post.

Nvidia said that when it releases the RTX 3060, the latest chip in its line of gaming graphics cards later this year, the company will modify the chip so that it cannot efficiently mine ether. Chips such as the RTX 3070 or RTX 3080 that have already been sold do not have such restrictions, Nvidia representatives said. "The RTX 3060 software driver is designed to detect specific properties of the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm and limit cryptocurrency mining efficiency to around 50%," the company said in a blog post.

Graphics cards were originally developed to support high-definition PC gaming, but are now becoming increasingly important to new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), and their usefulness in mining ether is nothing new. Back in 2017, Nvidia said it was making hundreds of millions of dollars a quarter from the sale of chips to cryptocurrency miners. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at the time: “Cryptocurrency and blockchain will survive, and market demand will grow. Over time, it will become very large.”

At the same time, the PC gaming industry is growing strongly. Consumer spending on PC gaming hardware is up 62 percent in 2020, according to market research firm NPD Group, and graphics cards are typically the most expensive components of gaming PCs.

Source:Sina Technology