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Hive announced the news of the deal in a press release on Monday (March 7, 2022). According to the announcement, the company also struck a manufacturing agreement with an ODM (original design manufacturer) to incorporate Intel's chips into "an air-cooled Bitcoin mining system."
Apart from the supply agreement with Intel, Hive also signed a non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI) with Compute North, a Minnesota-based firm that provides cryptocurrency mining infrastructure. While further details will be revealed after transactions between both parties are completed, the deal will see HIVE deploy 100 megawatts of mining capacity at one of Compute North's renewable energy sites in Texas.
HIVE's partnerships between Intel and Compute North are part of the company's plans to expand operations into the United States. The announcement noted that the use of Compute North's mining facility will facilitate HIVE's first mining activity in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the delivery of Intel's miners is scheduled to start in the second half of 2022 over a period of one year. Also, Hive is estimating a 95% increase in its aggregate BTC mining hashrate (up from 1.9 exahash per second) when the miners are installed.
Speaking on the supply agreement with Intel, the president and COO of HIVE, Aydin Kilic, said:
"After months of careful planning, we are very excited to take this step forward with a global technology leader like Intel. HIVE is committed to implementing these next-generation blockchain accelerators in its green energy infrastructure. This Intel Supply Agreement coupled with the ODM manufacturing agreement creates a pathway from chip production to an ASIC miner that sets us apart from our competitors.”
Kilic added:
“HIVE’s vision is to be a technology leader in the crypto-mining space, pushing the envelope in research and development initiatives, paired with hashrate analytics, to optimize efficiency of our operations and maximize return on invested capital.”
The HIVE executive further said that the use of Intel's blockchain accelerator will help the company's goal to reduce power consumption (compared to current ASIC miners) while promoting the use of green energy.
Intel first announced plans to release its new Bitcoin mining chip called Bonanza Mine, at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) held in February 2022. The Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) BTC miner is said to be energy-efficient and reduces power consumption used in mining activities by 15%.
While the semiconductor manufacturer gave further details about the first generation blockchain accelerator (BMZ1) at the ISSCC, there were reports that the firm was already on its second-generation Bonanza Miner ASIC.
According to the General Manager of Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group, Raja Koduri, the blockchain accelerator will be available for shipping later in 2022; it is expected to perform 1000 times better than mainstream GPUs for SHA-256 based mining.
Koduri also revealed that Intel already received pre-orders for the chips from clients such as Jack Dorsey's payment company Block (formerly Square), cloud mining pool Argo Blockchain, and GRIID Infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Intel's foray into Bitcoin mining is set to challenge major players such as Bitmain, Canaan, and MicroBT, all of which are Chinese Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturers. The United States became the top destination for BTC miners following China's clampdown on Bitcoin miners.