Thirsty for a piece of the action from the cryptocurrency market, it appears AMD has become the latest graphical processing unit (GPU) manufacturer to target the blockchain sector.
AMD just launched a new explainer page for cryptocurrency and blockchain tech. While the page admits cryptocurrency is currently the most well-known use case of blockchain, it suggests the technology has enormous potential to make an impact in a number of other sectors.
Here are some of the industries that AMD believes can benefit from the application of blockchain:
- Medicine and Health Care
- Finance and Banking
- Insurance
- Internet of Things (IoT) and Networking
- Digital Advertising
- Cyber Security
- Supply Chain Management
- Forecasting
- Cloud Computing
- Government
- Retail
- Real Estate
- Publishing
- Non-Profit Energy
For a technology that has barely found any productive usage outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum (and a few others privacy-oriented currencies), AMD seems to be placing a whole lot of hope in blockchain.
In fact, the list of potential future use cases is so long, it almost seems like blockchain is a welcome addition to practically any industry.
Many would argue that is hardly the case. But there is a good reason why AMD hasn’t: its new blockchain “explainer” section is practically a landing sales page for its new line of hardware (which also happens to be somewhat well-suited for mining).
Real smooth, AMD, real smooth.
In all fairness, there is nothing wrong with some competition in the mining sector – especially because this is likely to make the technology better and cheaper for consumers. Not so long ago, cryptocurrency giant Bitmain practically ruled over the mining sector, but reports suggest it has been losing ground to competitors.
Indeed, mainstream tech titans like Samsung have already expressed interest in the mining sector too, though there haven’t been any significant developments.
For those out of the loop, GPU manufacturers enjoyed healthy bumps in stock price when the cryptocurrency hype was at its height, but those gains quickly disappeared when the crypto-bandwagon started to lose steam.
It’ll be interesting to see if AMD’s mining adventure ends better than Nvidia’s.
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