Bitcoin Mining Can Power Neuroscience, Says Matrix Chief AI Scientist

At BlockShow Asia 2017, Matrix’s Chief AI Scientist explained how AI in the Blockchain ecosystem will revolutionize how mining computations can be used for non-crypto developments.

At this year’s BlockShow Asia, Yangdong Deng, chief AI scientist of Blockchain startup Matrix, explained how inserting Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the Blockchain ecosystem would make it possible to use Bitcoin mining computational power for scientific innovation.

According to Deng, the current computing power being used in Bitcoin mining operations is 8.23x10²² floating point operations per second (FLOPS for short), 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, justifying the frequent accusations that Bitcoin mining is wasteful.

Matrix 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.

One example he gave his scientific research -- a brain network simulation requires approximately 1018 FLOPS, while a complete human metabolic network simulation requires 1025 FLOPS.

According to Deng, other important non-crypto use cases that require massive computing power are chemical reaction simulations, medical diagnoses and complex finance modeling.

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 particularly for genetic sequencing.

The BlockShow Asia conference this November included a number of innovative projects in addition to Matrix. 1,500 entrepreneurs and experts gathered at the event in Singapore to share and discover the latest developments in the industry.