Cryptocurrency mining is hampering the seek for alien life
Miners area unit shopping for up GPUs that SETI must expand its watching stations.
David Lumb David Lumb, 21h ago
It seems that high-end graphics cards area unit fantastic for mining non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies, that has semiconductor diode to a world shortage of GPUs. Gamers area unit livid at the shortage of provide, particularly as costs skyrocket on secondary markets. however they don't seem to be the sole ones with ruined dreams: The shortage has stalled plans to expand the seek for alien life.
Search For Extraterrestrial Life (SETI) researchers need to create out their operations at 2 facilities, BBC reportable, however they can not notice GPUs to shop for.
"We'd prefer to use the most recent GPUs [graphics process units]... and that we cannot get 'em," SETI chief person Dan Werthimer told the BBC. "This could be a new drawback, it's solely happened on orders we've been making an attempt to form within the last number of months."
Crudely speaking, cryptocurrency miners harness the nice process power of GPUs to figure out complicated maths issues that, once resolved, grant coin parts as a day. SETI researchers want the high-performing processors to scan several communications frequencies directly to confirm they do not miss out on associate degree extraterrestrial's potential call; Berkeley SETI alone has a hundred GPUs.
Facilities in inexperienced Bank, WV and Parkes, Australia are attempting to expand, that the shortage is preventing: "We've got the money, we've contacted the vendors, and that they say, 'we simply do not have them'," Werthimer told the BBC.
Last June, AMD and NVIDIA tried to stem the tide by asserting new graphics cards specifically for the cryptocurrency mining market, and Samsung followed suit with its own GPU last month. however that hasn't created them easier for everybody else to shop for. NVIDIA could be apologizing for the shortage all the thanks to the bank once rising profits half-moon, however the $64000 tragedy may not be all the sweet play hours lost like tears in rain -- it can be the alien text gone unmarked whereas humans whip their GPUs to work out a lot of digital cash.
