China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#1

Post by amelius » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 7:23 AM UTC

China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI
qz.com

Re: China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#2

Post by pcr0 » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 10:21 AM UTC

Aren't machine learning workloads more variable than crypto mining? How would ASIC users cope with that?

Re: China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#3

Post by spupy » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 10:25 AM UTC

Is that a spoiler for "The Three-Body Problem" in the second paragraph? Thanks, QZ!...

Re: China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#4

Post by aaron-lebo » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 10:30 AM UTC

How great would it be if AI advances ended up controlled by an authoritarian Chinese government built off of the profits of libertarian Bitcoin users?

It's kind of fascinating just how dependent the value of cryptos and interest in them has been dependent upon China.

Re: China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#5

Post by matt4077 » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 10:32 AM UTC

pcr0 wrote: post #2

Aren't machine learning workloads more variable than crypto mining? How would ASIC users cope with that?

The big advances in neural networks stem from the use of GPUs that are themselves less flexible than CPUs, but allow extremely good parallelisation of (some) linear algebra (mostly matrix multiplication). This seems like a logical next step, and it's probably similar to those "tensor processing units" of the newer Tesla chips and whatever Google's custom hardware was called.

Re: China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#6

Post by aaron-lebo » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 10:34 AM UTC

spupy wrote: post #3

Is that a spoiler for "The Three-Body Problem" in the second paragraph? Thanks, QZ!...

Had never heard of it, but it looks really interesting:

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/07653...

Re: China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#7

Post by imaginenore » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 10:37 AM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #6

spupy wrote: post #3

Is that a spoiler for "The Three-Body Problem" in the second paragraph? Thanks, QZ!...

Had never heard of it, but it looks really interesting: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/07653...

Great book, somewhat unusual sci fi.

Re: China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#8

Post by raverbashing » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 10:37 AM UTC

spupy wrote: post #3

Is that a spoiler for "The Three-Body Problem" in the second paragraph? Thanks, QZ!...

Kinda.

It's not a major plot point that's being given away

It's more like "there's an Alien in Nostromo"

Re: China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#9

Post by pavel_lishin » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 10:45 AM UTC

spupy wrote: post #3

Is that a spoiler for "The Three-Body Problem" in the second paragraph? Thanks, QZ!...

It's a minor plot point, and it's not even described accurately.

Re: China’s Bitmain dominates Bitcoin mining, wants to cash in on AI

#10

Post by ojr » Tue, Aug 22, 2017, 10:57 AM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #4

How great would it be if AI advances ended up controlled by an authoritarian Chinese government built off of the profits of libertarian Bitcoin users? It's kind of fascinating just how dependent the value of cryptos and interest in them has been dependent upon China.

are you also fascinated that many internet applications are dependent on data centers in America? I think it is more fascinating that I can build a crypto application on top of infrastructure built in another continent.