Bitmain’s 2018 Recap: New ASIC Chip, AI and Much More

The largest to date crypto mining giant in the world, Bitmain, released its annual report yesterday, stating the company’s accomplishments in the turbulent for the crypto community 2018.

First and foremost, Bitmain launched numerous new products based on the new 7nm ASIC chip. Other improvements are the AsicBoost, which is a firmware update for better overall mining rig performance.

The newly-developed 7nm chip was integrated first in Bitmain’s Antminer S15 and T15. The new rigs were released on 28th of November 2018 and were sold out almost immediately. In the S15 model, users can expect a 28 TH/s hash rate and power consumption of around 57 J/TH. In the T15, miners can utilize 23 TH/s and expect power rates of 67 J/TH.

According to Bitmain’s press release, the new ASIC chip infrastructure provides improved performance, lowered power needs and better handling.

The next big step forward for Bitmain was the development of its AI Division, called “Sophon”. Bitmain’s AI product marketing director, Allen Tang described Bitmain’s involvement into AI as “not just a business model, but an entire focus shift”.

The AI department released the “Tensor BM1682 Computing Processor”, with a second-gen tensor processing unit. The main purpose of the processor is to aid the deep learning process with a peak performance of 3 TFLOPS FP32. The company further dived into the AI sector, releasing the “Edge TPU BM1880” for AI implementation and deep learning. With the new chips, Sophon can recognize objects, faces, fingerprints and license plates.

Bitmain also announced a partnership with one of the leading stablecoins, Circle, in its Series E investment round. The mining hegemon is also looking for other open-source projects in which to invest.

Other critical aspects in Bitmain’s 2018 roundup are the Bitmain Crypto index, the expansion in the United States and the sponsorship of Houston Rockets’ basketball team.

For 2019 Bitmain plans to further expand its global presence and also helping stabilize and mature the crypto market as we know it today.