Bitmain submitted an initial public offering (IPO) prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 26, breaking many previous malicious slanders and rumors and officially embarking on the road to listing in Hong Kong.
Bitmain was founded in 2013. From the official website description, we can see that it is positioned as a technology company focusing on the design and development of high-speed, low-power customized chips. Focusing on high-speed computing chips, integrated circuit IC industry, Internet finance, high-performance computing and other fields. HPC, machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) and other fields.
The most eye-catching aspect of the prospectus submitted this time is undoubtedly the exponential growth trend in the financial data disclosed. Bitmain’s revenue increased from US$137 million in 2015 to US$2.517 billion in 2017, with a compound annual growth rate of 328.2%, and from US$276 million in the first half of 2017 to US$2.846 billion in the first half of 2018. A year-on-year increase of 936.6%; net profit increased from US$83 million in the first half of 2017 to US$743 million in the first half of 2018, a year-on-year increase of 794.8%.
If you know that this is an achievement achieved by a company that was founded just over 4 years ago, then the story behind it is even more worth savoring.
Bitmain’s four main businesses are mining machine sales, mining pool operations, mining farm services and self-operated mining. It is currently the second largest fabless chip design company in China and the fourth largest fabless ASIC company in the world. Chip design company. Bitmain’s share of the global cryptocurrency mining machine market has reached 74.5%, occupying an absolute leading position.
Bitmain is also actively expanding investment on the premise of rapid growth and operation of its own business. From last year to September this year, Bitmain made a total of 29 investments, 26 of which were in the blockchain field. More and more attention is paid to the integration of blockchain and real economy-related industries, and investments involve popular industries such as automobile retail, games, and tourism. .
At the same time, Bitmain is also strengthening chip research and development and manufacturing in the comprehensive field of AI, using ASIC chip technology to expand AI fields other than mining. Judging from the development strategy mentioned in the prospectus, Bitmain will continue to invest in artificial intelligence and promote the commercial application of artificial intelligence technology and solutions. Bitmain stated that part of the proceeds from this financing will be used for the research and development and production expansion of high-tech artificial intelligence chips and artificial intelligence applications, helping the company to further develop into the world's leading high-tech chip design company.
Dating back to 5 days before Bitmain submitted its prospectus, Wu Jihan announced at the Global Digital Currency Ecological Industry Chain Summit and Mining Exchange Summit (WDMS) held in Tbilisi, Georgia, that Bitmain’s 7-nanometer mining machine chip It will be put into mass production soon. The audience erupted in cheers at the news of the pregnancy.
Mining machine chip: the core of multi-model mining machine iteration
It can be said that the main driving force behind the many iterations of Antminer and the absolute leadership in computing power of the two major mining pools of Bitmain comes from the continued research and development of mining ASIC chips. In addition, on the official website of Bitmain’s artificial intelligence sub-brand “Suanfeng”, dedicated ASIC chips also make Bitmain’s product line in the AI field clearer.
When it comes to Bitmain’s mining-specific ASIC chips, Antminer will definitely be mentioned. After many iterations, the chips carried by Antminers are also constantly changing. Antminers all use mining-specific ASIC chips designed by Bitmain. Most of these chips are produced by TSMC, and all have the BM prefix. Each Antminer has 3 to 4 circuit boards with dozens of chips on them, and each specific model of Antminer can only be used to mine one or more cryptocurrencies that use the same algorithm. . Lingyi Finance·According to public information, Bitmain’s more representative Ant mining machines and chips are summarized as follows.
Type S is a Bitcoin mining machine that runs the algorithm; Type C is a water-cooled Bitcoin mining machine, of which there is currently only one; Type D is a Dash mining machine that runs the X11 algorithm; Type L is a Litecoin mining machine, but it also It can be used to mine Dogecoin; Type A is a mining machine that runs algorithms and can be used to mine cloud storage coins (); Type T is also a Bitcoin mining machine, but its performance is more stable than Type S, but it consumes more power. High; Type E is a mining machine that runs the algorithm and is used to mine Ethereum; Type Z is a computer that runs the algorithm and is used to mine Zcash.
In the six years since 2013, Bitmain’s continuously iterative mining machine chips have pushed the highest computing power of a single mining machine in its product line to 18TH/s (S9 Hydro). As long as the mining difficulty and computing power of the entire network continue to increase, or mining cryptocurrency is still profitable for miners, Bitmain's dedicated mining chips have the potential to continue to be updated. Recently, Bitmain announced that the 7-nanometer chip that is about to be mass-produced can already reduce energy efficiency to 42J/TH. You must know that the current energy efficiency of Bitmain S9 series is generally above 90J/TH. Although the computing power size has not yet been announced, at the 7-nanometer level, its low energy consumption can already be regarded as a major selling point of the chip.
AI chip: the "sophon" to lay out new markets
Although Bitmain's core business is the development of cryptocurrency-specific mining chips and the production of mining equipment, the prospectus still uses considerable space to emphasize that the company hopes to develop its own industry in the research and development of AI chips and hardware equipment. market. The brand currently established by Bitmain in the field of AI chips is called "Suanfeng", which is taken from the miniature supercomputer "Sophon" in the science fiction novel "The Three-Body Problem".
Bitmain has always maintained a very optimistic attitude towards the prospects of the AI market. Since 2015, it has actively invested funds and manpower in the design and research and development of AI chips. The prospectus shows that in terms of revenue, the global cloud AI chip market has grown from approximately US$200 million in 2013 to approximately US$2.1 billion in 2017, with a compound annual growth rate of 80%; the global cloud AI chip market is expected to grow from 2017 to 2022. The compound annual growth rate is 62.1%. In May this year, Wu Jihan said that transforming into the AI field is a natural choice for Bitmain. It is expected that AI chips will account for 40% of Bitmain’s revenue in the next five years.
If you want to become a leading company in the field of AI chips and hardware, you will need to face extremely fierce competition. After all, looking around the world, leading large technology companies, including Intel, Samsung Electronics, NVIDIA, ARM Holdings, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple and IBM, are all interested in becoming leaders in this field.
Bitmain’s prospectus revealed that the new AI chip is expected to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2018. Cloud AI chips usually need to process more data, which requires more complex and powerful computing capabilities. Therefore, whether Bitmain’s new AI chip can continue to consolidate its competitive position in the fiercely competitive AI chip market will not be tested until the new chip is actually launched after the fourth quarter of this year.
Judging from the announcement in the prospectus, in addition to the design of AI chips, Bitmain also pays special attention to the application of AI chips, which are mainly used in cloud training and reasoning in areas such as image recognition and face recognition, and develops accelerator cards equipped with AI chips. . Deep learning server, while expanding into new areas of artificial intelligence such as terminal equipment chips, algorithms, and development platforms. In addition, the AI chip developer platform will be improved to assist users in developing AI applications on AI chips. Continuous investment in artificial intelligence and promoting the commercial application of artificial intelligence technology and solutions are one of Bitmain's three major strategies.
According to the Bitmain prospectus announcement, as of June 30, of the 168 patents being applied for by Bitmain, 12 are related to AI business. Currently, Bitmain’s artificial intelligence products can be used in security monitoring, voice processing, image recognition, robotics and other fields.
Currently, Bitmain has launched peak calculation servers and smart terminals for security and campus applications. At the strategic communication meeting in January, Tang Weiwei, Bitmain’s AI product strategy director, said that he hoped to use the intelligent video analysis server Shuangfeng SS1 to assist Xinjiang’s security construction and contribute to Xinjiang’s security cause. Intelligent video analysis server SS1 is a server system specially built for intelligent video image analysis. Based on the independently developed tensor acceleration processor and accelerator card SC1, it has functions such as face detection, face recognition, human body detection, machine and non-human detection classification, etc. and other standard features. Recently, the smart server SA3 developed by Bitmain based on the second-generation artificial intelligence chip has also surfaced. With performance that is more than 2 times higher than products in the same industry, it enters the AI security market like a heavy tank. We have reason to believe that the stable security market may be shaken.
In the field of robotics, Bitmain launched the “Luo Xiaodou” product. In December 2017, Bitmain acquired the intelligent robot company Luobo Technology to create a "new species" series of robot product lines. Ketuan Zhan said that Bitmain will increase investment in research and development of the robot product line and enrich the "new species" series of products.
We can’t help but ask, when everyone talks about Bitmain, is artificial intelligence or blockchain the first thing that comes to mind? And ten years from now, when the fog clears, what kind of company will Bitmain be?
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