April 18 (Reuters) - Chipmaker Intel Corp said
on Tuesday it has discontinued production of its bitcoin mining
chip series, just a year after its introduction.
A rout in the cryptocurrency market hurt some chip companies
including Nvidia Corp , whose high-end graphics chips
became popular for crypto mining.
Intel expects to stop taking orders for the series, called
Blockscale, by October 20 this year and end shipping by April 20
next year, according to a document on the company's website.
"As we prioritize our investments in IDM 2.0, we have
end-of-lifed the Intel Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC while we
continue to support our Blockscale customers," a company
spokesperson said.
IDM 2.0 refers to Intel's strategy to outsource its chip
making to outside customers, while it continues to ramp up its
own production of smaller and faster chips.
Intel said it will continue to "monitor market
opportunities" in the cryptocurrency space.
Argo Blockchain , Block Inc , Hive Blockchain
Technologies and GRIID Infrastructure were Intel's first
customers for the chips.
(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna
Chandra Eluri)
