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Skild AI announces $300M funding from Jeff Bezos, Softbank to build ‘robot brains’

Another unicorn has entered the race the develop human-level AI.

Artificial intelligence firm Skild AI recently emerged from stealth to report the successful closing of a $300 million series A funding round featuring participation by Jeff Bezos and Softbank among others.

Skild AI is a Carnegie Mellon spinout focused on building an AI system capable of being retrofitted to various machines and robotics devices called a “general-purpose brain.”

According to a company blog post, the funding was raised at a valuation of $1.5 billion and was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, SoftBank Group, and Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions). It also featured participation from Felicis Ventures, Sequoia, Menlo Ventures, General Catalyst, CRV, Amazon, SV Angel, and Carnegie Mellon University.

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‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Bitcoin derivatives turn bearish as traders anticipate sub $60K BTC price

Bitcoin derivatives data suggests that macroeconomic and crypto-specific factors are behind BTC’s recent drop below $60,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped 5.8% between June 23 and June 24, reaching its lowest level in seven weeks at $59,700. Despite a modest recovery to $60,400, a total of $153 million in leveraged long BTC futures was forcefully liquidated due to insufficient margin. This movement caused derivatives metrics to shift to a neutral sentiment, ending a bullish trend that had lasted five weeks.

Traders are now questioning whether the worsening crypto market conditions indicate a longer bear market or a momentary panic due to miners being forced to cover expenses amid lower profitability and the potential sale of large stashes by known entities. Should traders wait for a dip to $57,500 or increase their positions during this period of fear, uncertainty, and doubt?

Some analysts raised concerns after the failed exchange Mt. Gox bankruptcy estate announced the imminent repayment in Bitcoin. Anonymous influencer fejau stressed that the disbursement announcement could have been anticipated by insiders, which explains the recent price weakness. However, fejau is puzzled by Bitcoin’s performance given the constructive macroeconomic scenario.

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‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Wormhole and AMD Forge Alliance to Revolutionize Blockchain Interoperability 

Wormhole and AMD Forge Alliance to Revolutionize Blockchain Interoperability On Wednesday, the blockchain interoperability platform Wormhole revealed it is collaborating with the American multinational semiconductor company AMD (Advanced Micro Devices). Wormhole plans to utilize AMD’s Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology in order to bolster cross-chain communication and multi-chain scalability. AMD’s FPGA Tech to Power Wormhole’s Interoperability Ambitions Wormhole, an interoperability platform for blockchains, […]

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

China AI chip market finds expansion paths despite US export restrictions

The U.S. imposed export restrictions of high-level AI chips to China last October, though Chinese companies are now finding new options to develop their technology.

The Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chip market has been subject to ongoing export restrictions which imposed by the United States from October 2022, which prohibited the sale of certain U.S. products to China. 

The U.S. initially blocked the export of the highest level of chips produced by companies like Nvidia and AMD. Under the initial October controls the companies were still able to export other models to China, such as Nvidia’s A800 and H800.

One year later on Oct. 17, the U.S. government announced an expansion of controls to “reinforce” the previous ones, which meant that all chip models would be embargoed from the Chinese market.

One of Nvidia's top gaming chips, the L40S chip is also affected by the latest export restrictions, which were immediately effective on Oct. 24.

However, on Nov. 9 the local Chinese media outlet STAR Market Daily reported that Nvidia has plans to release three new chips for China. The report cited people familiar with the matter and said the chips are called the HGX H20, L20 PCIe and L2 PCIe.

Nvidia reportedly could make the announcement about the new chips as early as Nov. 16. Cointelegraph has reached out to Nvidia for comment but hasn't yet received a response.

According to a quarterly report from Nvidia earlier this year, China is one of its largest markets, along with Taiwan and the U.S.

Related: Chinese president calls for unity on AI challenges and cyber development

Additionally, Chinese companies have been turning to domestic companies to fulfill their needs for AI chips. 

On Nov. 7, Reuters reported that the Chinese technology company Baidu had ordered AI chips from Huawei in August of this year.

According to the report, Baidu ordered 1,600 of Huawei’s 910B Ascend AI chips for 200 servers. Huawei’s 910B chips are supposed to be an alternative to Nvidia’s A100.

The report said that by October, Huawei delivered more than 60% of Baidu’s chip order, which is roughly 1,000 chips and has a total value of approx. 450 million yuan ($61.83 million). The remaining chips are expected by the end of the year.

Baidu is one of China’s leading AI companies. In October it released its Ernie 4.0 AI system, which it says has an overall performance “on par with ChatGPT.”

Over the summer the Biden Administration reportedly said it is even considering adding restrictions on China’s access to cloud computing services.

Last week, United States Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez reiterated that fear to reporters at an event in Tokyo, particularly highlighting concerns over usage for military purposes.

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‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

AMD reveals new AI chip challenging Nvidia’s dominance

With its CDNA architecture and 192GB memory capacity, the MI300X by AMD accommodates larger AI models.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) on Tuesday, June 13, gave new details about an artificial intelligence (AI) chip that will challenge market leader Nvidia Corp.

The California-based AMD said its most-advanced graphics processing unit (GPU) for AI, the MI300X, will start trickling out in the third quarter and be followed by mass production beginning in the fourth quarter.

AMD's announcement represents the most substantial challenge to Nvidia, which currently dominates the market for AI chips with over 80% market share. GPUs are chips used by firms like OpenAI to build cutting-edge AI programs such as ChatGPT. They have parallel processing capabilities and are optimized for handling large amounts of data simultaneously, making them well-suited for tasks that require high-speed and efficient graphical processing.

AMD announced that its latest MI300X chip and CDNA architecture was specifically developed to cater to the demands of large language models and advanced AI models. With a maximum memory capacity of 192GB, the MI300X enables the accommodation of even larger AI models compared to other chips like Nvidia's H100 chip which supports a maximum of 120GB of memory.

AMD Chief Executive Lisa Su speaking at an event outlining AMD AI accelerator chip in San Francisco

AMD announced the Infinity Architecture, which combines eight M1300X accelerators into a single system, mirroring similar systems by Nvidia and Google that integrate eight or more GPUs for AI applications.

During the presentation to investors and analysts in San Francisco, AMD chief executive officer, Lisa Su highlighted that AI represents the company's "most significant and strategically important long-term growth opportunity."

"We think about the data center AI accelerator [market] growing from something like $30 billion this year, at over 50% compound annual growth rate, to over $150 billion in 2027," 

If developers and server manufacturers adopt AMD's "accelerator" AI chips as alternatives to Nvidia's products, it could open up a significant untapped market for the chipmaker. AMD, renowned for its conventional computer processors, stands to benefit from this potential shift in demand.

Related: AI startup by ex-Meta and Google researchers raises $113M in seed funding

Although AMD did not reveal specific pricing details, this action could potentially exert downward price pressure on Nvidia's GPUs, including models like the H100, which can carry price tags of $30,000 or higher. Reduced GPU prices have the potential to contribute to lowering the overall expenses associated with running resource-intensive generative AI applications.

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‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Demand for Crypto Mining Rigs in Vietnam Rises With Bitcoin Prices, Report Reveals

Demand for Crypto Mining Rigs in Vietnam Rises With Bitcoin Prices, Report RevealsHigher cryptocurrency prices recently have restored interest in digital coin minting in Vietnam. Crypto mining is once again seen as an investment opportunity with other options being limited by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has been affecting the Asian country. Vietnam’s Sales and Prices of Crypto Mining Rigs Spike in September Demand for crypto mining […]

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

Fortunes turning? Specialized GPUs and SSDs come to aid crypto miners

Manufacturers restrict mining of cryptocurrencies due to a shortage of GPU cards: Will this lead to the end of mining as we know it?

After an exceptional start to the year, the crypto market entered a bearish period in mid-May, causing some to reevaluate their stance on some of the fundamentals surrounding the crypto industry.

The prolonged fall of Bitcoin (BTC) — by more than 50% — and the subsequent dip in mining difficulty by 16%, which are suspected to have been partially caused by news of China’s intention to take tough measures against crypto mining and trading, as well as Tesla’s decision to stop accepting Bitcoin as payment for its electric vehicles, have turned out to be a turning point that brought criticism of crypto to a new level.

Against this background, some commentators and crypto enthusiasts have started talking about the possible end of the mining era. Or is it just a new beginning and a way for the industry to reinvent itself and make use of new solutions to appease the ever-expanding number of stakeholders?

Hardware deficit and price growth

The first bell actually rang back in February this year, when buyers of GPU cards, whether they are miners or gamers, had begun talking about a severe shortage of available cards, which led to exorbitant price increases.

For example, in the United States, some models of cards have risen in price by 120%. It should be noted, however, that the lack of components that make up the video cards have played an important role in such a price hike. What’s more, the slowdown in global supply chains on the back of COVID-19 restrictions has only exacerbated the already dire situation.

Given the spread of hysteria surrounding the short supply of GPU cards, miners were looking for alternative ways of mining cryptocurrencies as new cryptocurrencies, such as Chia (XCH), appeared. Mining this cryptocurrency requires the use of a solid-state drive (SSD), which is used for storing user data on a personal computer and is several times cheaper than GPU cards.

Chia uses free space on the device’s storage, and the more free gigabytes there are, the faster this cryptocurrency will be mined. In addition, Bram Cohen, creator of Chia Network, argued that his cryptocurrency is environmentally friendly compared to others because hard drives consume significantly less power than GPU cards, which means less harm to the environment. Of course, critics were quick to point out a key shortcoming of such a strategy, arguing that the lifespan of this equipment gets reduced to just 80–160 days, which means it must be constantly disposed of for something new.

Despite an alternative to the GPU cards, the emergence of Chia has also inevitably led to a shortage of storage devices and an increase in their prices. In China, back in April, consumers began to buy hard disc drives with a capacity of 4–18 terabytes, while SSDs were also in hot demand. In Hong Kong, the excitement instantly provoked a rise in prices for these components; depending on the model, the cost increased by $25–$75.

Fighting miners

In the wake of price increases, GPU card manufacturers began to actively fend off crypto miners back in February. Spearheading the assault, Nvidia tried to prevent mining by releasing a special driver 470.05 for its RTX 3060 cards, which are widely used for mining Ether (ETH). However, the block did not work in most cases, as miners bypassed it using cheap plugs for HDMI ports that mimic the operation of a monitor.

The unsuccessful attempt to limit the performance of GPU cards forced Nvidia to try a hardware block. At the end of May, the company announced a line of GPU cards called GeForce RTX 30 Lite Hash Rate. The GeForce RTX 30 LHR series includes video cards of the 3060, 3060 Ti, 3070 and 3080 series.

Protection against mining on these cards is implemented at the hardware level: When Ether is mined, the performance drops by half, and the overall mining efficiency decreases by more than 50%. The start of sales was scheduled for late May to early June, but the company has not yet released this product.

Nvidia’s partners have also joined the initiative by releasing GeForce RTX 30 LHR cards under their own brands, and Zotac was among the first. These cards are distinguished with a new marking so that buyers can differentiate the cards when buying one. Anti-mining cards have letters “GE” or “G” in the name, for example, Zotac RTX 3060-12GD6 Destroyer GE Pro.

Moreover, at the end of May, PC manufacturer Asus registered the v2 series GPU card with the Eurasian Economic Commission. Most likely, this is how the company labels the LHR models, which have hardware and software protection against Ether mining.

It is noteworthy that AMD, the only big competitor to Nvidia in the GPU cards market, has not yet reacted in any way to the attempts of its competitors to return the prices of gaming cards to their previous values. The company has announced no plans to release special anti-mining modifications of its accelerators. Meanwhile, the company said that it would not limit the computing power for mining cryptocurrency so that users can determine what to use the computing power of the GPU for.

Double game

Having deprived crypto miners of using gaming cards, Nvidia simultaneously offered miners an alternative in the form of a series of CMP HX accelerators. These products are focused specifically on mining, which is expressed in the presence of a special crypto mining processor (CMP) and the complete absence of external interfaces. In other words, it’s simply impossible to connect a monitor to them — thus, it can’t be used for gaming.

Asus CMP 40HX will be able to provide mining efficiency of up to 43.77 megahashes per second, while the official number announced by Nvidia stands at 36 MH/s. The 21% higher hash rate is due to memory and power consumption optimization of the video card.

It was assumed that a specialized mining card CMP 40HX would go on sale before the end of the first quarter of this year. Like all other models of specialized video cards of the CMP HX series, they will be distributed by NVIDIA partners. Asus was the first to announce possible prices for such cards: CMP 40HX could cost $699 and the younger model, CMP 30HX, whose mining efficiency is 26 MH/s, around $599.

AMD is also preparing a new GPU that will be designed for cryptocurrency mining. The cards will be based on Navi 10 and Navi 12 chips, which will be capable of mining Ether. AMD has stated that the new GPU would be released without VCN and Display Core Next DCN technologies, which will prevent them from streaming video to the display, once again, rendering them useless for gamers.

Known manufacturers of other mining equipment are not sitting on the sidelines either. Sabrent announced at the end of May the sale of PlotRipper SSDs for Chia Coin miners. The main advantage of the new SSDs is their larger capacity, which will be used gradually as the drives wear out. The PlotRipper and PlotRipper Pro models contain 4TB and 8TB NAND chips, respectively.

Is the end of crypto mining canceled?

The desire of manufacturers to separate their mining cards from gaming ones is understandable, especially when the company is experiencing problems with resources for the production and tarnishes its image in the process.

But in any production, the main thing is demand, which generates income. At the end of the first quarter of 2021, Nvidia made $155 million in revenue from the sales of GPUs designed specifically for cryptocurrency mining. In the second quarter of the fiscal year, it expects to generate $400 million.

Related: Top crypto mining hardware to expect in 2021

AMD also released its first-quarter report showing impressive revenue growth, recording a 93% rise to $3.45 billion over the same period last year. The management explained this dynamic by the surge in demand for consumer Ryzen processors and Radeon graphics cards. The average selling price has been rising in both the CPU and graphics segment. In fact, the revenue from the sales of client processors and their average price have reached record levels.

Thus, if companies continue to make such profits, in which cryptocurrency mining plays an important role, then it is likely that chip manufacturers would be willing to cater to all avenues of customers with specialized products. It may actually be that mining is not only alive and well but, in the face of a sharp drop in crypto prices, may actually come out stronger as the result.

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs

AMD Won’t Restrict Crypto Miners From Using Its Graphic Cards

AMD Won’t Restrict Crypto Miners From Using Its Graphic CardsMajor chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) keeps making headlines amid the battle between crypto miners and PC gamers. Now, the company seems to have made a step forward to become friendlier to those with crypto mining purposes. AMD Doesn’t Want to Follow Nvidia’s Path According to a PC Gamer report, citing a product manager from […]

‘BITSANITY’ — Records broken with $70B in volume for Bitcoin stocks, ETFs