Bitmain built more than 70 % of all the computers on the Bitcoin network. Bitmain builds the Antminer which is used to perform the hash functions involved in trading and mining Bitcoin. Now this tech giant which made around 4 billion profit last year now plans to move towards Artificial Intelligence.
Jihan Wu, the Co-Founder of Bitmain says that Bitmain cannot rely on Bitcoin and is looking for other avenues of success and one of those is Artificial Intelligence
Bitmain CEO Micree Zhan announced that their new AI chip (Sophon BM1680) at the AIWORLD in Beijing. If things go as planned thousand of Sophon units could be training neural networks in huge data centers around the globe.
Sophon wants the propel Artificial Intelligence applications using ASICs. Allen Tang Bitmain’s product marketer has a firm believe that AI and blockchain are the left and right leg of the future.
Micree Zhan explains “Bitmain saw trends in the AI business that was similar to the early days of Bitcoin, and so we started to explore AI toward the end of 2015. Now after only a year and a half, we have the mass-production chips in hand.”
The Sophon BM1680 is the heart of a card that’s is an accelerator for deep learning applications and is currently sold on Bitmain’s website. Which makes it clear that Bitmain is looking into to diversify into more verticals.