AI power consumption echoes criticism of Bitcoin mining, says Hetbit founder

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) demand vast amounts of computing resources as demand for space grows, but conventional Bitcoin (BTC) miners aren't jumping in just yet.

Speaking to Cointelegraph reporter Joe Hall at Web Summit 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal, Hitbit founder Alex Busarov believes that mining farms, data centers and small computing power providers are more focused on Bitcoin mining than the early AI and ML infrastructure space.

“That's because when people talk about AI, that's typically the real application side of AI. It can speak for you or create your voice or what, but people don't think about AI calculations that much,” Busarov explains.

Busarov's Heatbit company pioneered hardware devices that simultaneously mine Bitcoin and generate heat to heat homes. Bitcoin-mining boilers show a circuit board used for mining BTC and AI training and computer resources.

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The Web Summit, which has drawn more than 70,000 people to Lisbon each year in recent years, has given Busarov an opportunity to expand Hetbit's original BTC-centric focus as an AI training resource.

Part of the company's marketing strategy is focused on the negative perception of Bitcoin's use of mining energy.

While they believe BTC-heaters are playing a role in the creation of BTC-heaters by allowing them to be a secondary heat source in cold climates, Busarov believes AI computing may soon receive the same negative perception as the industry continues to demand hardware resources.

“I think AI is going to overtake Bitcoin mining in all the headlines, ‘AI training will use more power in this country' soon. With AI training chips, they want devices like ours.”

Heatbit hardware already offers AI and ML resources. Still, Busarov also believes that the broader ecosystem of GPU and ASIC infrastructure won't necessarily stay away from Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining efforts.

“I think what people really stick with is Bitcoin mining. I think they understand Bitcoin mining computing better than AI training computing.”

The founder of Heatbit also believes that indoor mining may become more practical in the future, because the level of accuracy of hardware in large-scale mining will come down to the price of energy.

“Who has the cheapest energy prices? So someone who doesn't have to pay for energy.

Busarov, combined with additional functions such as heating and cooling, leads the mining to zero energy costs.

“That's why I think it's coming back to home mining for economic reasons with apps like ours.”

Cointelegraph recently reported that the demand for AI computing resources is increasing. Innovative startups like io.net are leveraging blockchain solutions to power networks that bring GPU computing power from geographically dispersed data centers, cryptocurrency miners, and decentralized storage providers to power machine learning and AI computing.

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