Bitcoin mining can power neuroscience, says chief AI scientist

At the BlockShow Asia, last November, Yangdong Deng, chief AI scientist of Blockchain startup, MATRIX AI Network, explained how inserting artificial intelligence (AI) into the Blockchain ecosystem would make it possible to use Bitcoin mining computational power for scientific innovation.

The Blockchain is the technology that powers Bitcoin and other digital currencies. According to Deng, the current computing power being used in Bitcoin mining operations is 8.23x10²² floating point operations (FLOPS) per second, while the total computing power in the world is 1.2x10²³ FLOPS. According to these calculations, Bitcoin mining is consuming 17 percent of total global computing power, validating the frequent accusations that Bitcoin mining is wasteful.

MATRIX AI Network is seeking to reinvent mining algorithms by including AI into the equation through a Bayesian mining system that utilizes a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm (MCMC). Because these computations function similarly to traditional mining functions, they work well for Bitcoin mining.

As Deng argues, using AI, the computing power used to verify transactions on the Bitcoin network can be leveraged for other uses outside the world of cryptocurrencies, including chemical reaction simulations, medical diagnoses and complex finance modelling.

Intel recently filed a patent for a Blockchain-based system that also works to harness the energy used in cryptocurrency mining for scientific development – in this case genetic sequencing.