artificial intelligence (ai) and machine learning (ML) are demanding huge amounts of computing resources as interest in this space grows, but mainstream bitcoin (btc) miners aren’t jumping on the bandwagon just yet.
Speaking to Cointelegraph journalist Joe Hall at Web Summit 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal, Heatbit founder Alex Busarov believes that mining farms, data centers and small-scale computing power providers are much more informed about bitcoin mining than the nascent ai and ML infrastructure space.
“The reason is that when people talk about ai, they usually mean the actual application part of ai; It can speak for you, or it can create your voice or whatever, but people don’t really think that much about the computing side of ai,” Busarov explains.
Busarov’s Heatbit company has pioneered heating hardware devices that simultaneously mine bitcoin and generate heat to heat homes. bitcoin mining heaters feature a circuit board that is capable of mining btc, as well as being used for ai training and computing resources.
Related: ‘107,000 GPUs on Waitlist’: Io.net Beta Launch Draws Data Centers and GPU Clusters
Web Summit, which has attracted more than 70,000 people to Lisbon annually in recent years, provided Busarov the opportunity to expand Heatbit’s original btc-focused focus to its ability to be used as an ai training resource.
Part of the company’s marketing strategy focuses on the negative perception of the energy use of bitcoin mining.
While he admits that btc heaters are playing their part in the innovation of bitcoin mining by allowing it to be a secondary heating source in colder climates, Busarov believes that ai computing could soon generate a similar negative perception as the industry continues to demand hardware resources.
“I think ai is going to overtake bitcoin mining very soon with all the headlines like: “ai training is using more energy than this in this country.” “They will need devices like ours, only with ai training chips.”
Heatbit hardware already provides ai and ML capabilities. Still, Busarov also believes that the broader ecosystem of GPU and ASIC infrastructure might not necessarily move away from bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining efforts just yet.
“I think what sticks with people is actually bitcoin mining. “I think they actually understand bitcoin mining informatics much better than ai training informatics.”
The Heatbit founder also believes that home mining could become more viable again in the future, given that the level of precision of the hardware involved in large-scale mining means that competition comes down to the cost of energy:
“Who has the cheapest energy cost? Well, the one who doesn’t have to pay the cost of energy.”
Busarov says that combining mining with additional functions such as heating and cooling results in zero energy costs for the mining itself.
“That’s why I think we will return to domestic mining, for economic reasons, through applications like ours.”
As Cointelegraph recently reported, demand for ai computing resources is increasing. Innovative startups like io.net are leveraging blockchain solutions to power networks that draw GPU computing power from geographically diverse data centers, cryptocurrency miners, and decentralized storage providers to drive machine learning and ai computing.
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