Cryptomining Firm Purchases Site With 223,000 GPUs

By published

So that's where all the graphics supply went

Servers
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Bitcoin mining and HPC application leader Northern Data has acquired 24,000 EPYC servers along with 223,000 AMD and Nvidia GPUs from Block.one, for the price of 195 million Euros and another 170 million Euros in shares. The new GPUs and servers will make Northern Data's server infrastructure more powerful than the world's fastest supercomputer, the Fugaku.

Northern Data expects full installation of GPU server systems to be complete by Q3 of 2021, with servers installed across several countries including Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany. The added hardware will boost Northern Data's raw compute power by more than double, going from 1.29 exaflops of FP32 performance to 2.6 exaflops.

The primary goal of Northern Data is to boost its HPC and Bitcoin mining operations substantially with the new graphics cards and EYPC processors. But the company is also planning to extend to rendering, AI, blockchain applications, and IoT workflows for customers of Northern Data.

What's not clear is exactly what type of GPUs we're talking about. Are these consumer graphics cards used for Ethereum mining and other cryptocurrency endeavors, or are they data center GPUs specifically designed for AI and HPC applications? We don't know.

What we do know is that 223,000 GPUs is about 100 times as many GPUs as what all of Micro Center received for the Radeon RX 6600 XT launch. And this was just one mining firm selling off some of its hardware. Based on the Ethereum network hashrate, it would take five million GeForce RTX 3090 cards to power the network; ten million GPUs like the RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti, or RX 6800/RX 6800 XT/RX 6900 XT; or 20 million GPUs like the RX 6600 XT and RX 580 8GB. Small wonder GPU prices remain inflated.

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
21 Comments Comment from the forums
  • 2Be_or_Not2Be
    Cryptomining is pretty much the primary reason why the mfgs can't catch up to demand. It doesn't matter if the GPUs are dedicated to mining cards or if they were ones put on "retail" boards, but they're being ordered in large qtys from the AIBs/distributors. The AIBs/dists don't say too much about it because they are greatly profiting from the large buys from large-scale miners. But when you read these articles, it becomes very obvious why you can't find GPUs readily available at MSRP.
    Reply
  • andrewkelb
    The GPU industry feels like its becoming the crypto mining industry, I would love to see a break down of gamers vs miners, who are getting the GPUS in the current GPU generation.
    Reply
  • husker
    Goodbye PC gaming. We hardly knew ye.
    Reply
  • excalibur1814
    eBay seems to be settling 'a small amount'. More and more cards are hitting Buy It Now and the last few, I hope, people willing to pay STUPID cash have bought their cards.
    Reply
  • daworstplaya
    So basically the 25% went to miners was an under inflated % ..... so most of the GPUs went to Cryptominers. Crypto needs to die.
    Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    We need legal sanctions & regulation for AIB & GPU vendors to BAR/BAN any sales directly to ANY Crypto Miner or ANY data center that does Crypto Mining.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    We need legal sanctions & regulation for AIB & GPU vendors to BAR/BAN any sales directly to ANY Crypto Miner or ANY data center that does Crypto Mining.
    Sanctions and regulations in what country?
    And to what end result?
    "Waaa...they're selling too many to people not like me."

    (just playing devils advocate...I don't like it either)


    Any "law" crafted carefully enough to prevent this would be worked around. Or just ignored.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    It doesn't make any sense to regulate companies from selling to miners without first having some sort of regulations on miners themselves.
    Reply
  • Kamen Rider Blade
    USAFRet said:
    Sanctions and regulations in what country?
    And to what end result?
    "Waaa...they're selling too many to people not like me."

    (just playing devils advocate...I don't like it either)


    Any "law" crafted carefully enough to prevent this would be worked around. Or just ignored.
    Doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

    TJ Hooker said:
    It doesn't make any sense to regulate companies from selling to miners without first having some sort of regulations on miners themselves.
    We also need to regulate miners as well along with Crypto Mining.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Kamen Rider Blade said:
    Doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
    Why, specifically, should we "try"?

    And how?
    Make crypto mining illegal?
    Reply