Study reveals 'huge' savings in energy with Quantum mining

Researchers at the University of Kent found quantum systems to be much more energy efficient for mining blockchain compared to an ASIC miner

By Shashank Bhardwaj

Published: Jun 9, 2023 03:38:16 PM IST

Updated: Jun 9, 2023 04:39:13 PM IST

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A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Kent’s School of Computing in the United Kingdom compared the energy consumption rates in ASIC-based miners with quantum-based solutions. Quantum mining, a new type of mining technology which harnesses the power of quantum computing, uses quantum algorithms to perform calculations.

This research comes in the middle of numerous allegations against blockchains like Bitcoin for being energy-intensive to unprecedented levels. The team’s findings showed that systems utilising quantum computing were clearly outperforming standard mining rigs in terms of energy efficiency:

“We show that the transition to quantum-based mining could incur an energy saving — by relatively conservative estimates — of about roughly 126.7 TWH, or put differently the total energy consumption of Sweden in 2020.”

The mining operations of Bitcoin alone was seen to have consumed more than 150 terawatt hours annually till May, 2022, according to the paper.

The conclusions which the scientists arrived at were based on experiments which compared three different quantum mining systems to an Antminer S19 XP ASIC miner.

The researchers pointed out that blockchain mining is one of the few areas of quantum computing where the correction of errors doesn’t matter much. In most other quantum functions, a computing system’s capability of producing accurate computations gets functionally limited by the noise created by errors.

The researchers revealed that quantum-based systems can actually be fine-tuned over time for an enhanced accuracy and efficiency, unlike traditional hardware.

Quantum computing technology is still in its infancy; however, crypto mining does not need a full-service quantum computing solution. The researchers put it sp, “a quantum miner is not, and need not be, a scalable, universal quantum computer. A quantum miner needs only perform a single task.”

The researchers concluded that it should be possible to use existing quantum technologies for building miners that exhibit quantum advantage over classical computers.

Shashank is the founder of yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash