According to an astronomer’s statement, scientists trying to listen to broadcasts made to listen and discover extraterrestrials are forced to find the computer hardware they need due to the cryptocurrency craze. They want to expand to the observatory:
But they realized that basic computer chips are hard to come by.
Dan Werthimer “We want to use the latest GPUs (graphics processing unit) … but we can’t get them ”
Demand for GPUs has skyrocketed lately due to cryptocurrency mining.
Dr Werthimer told the BBC, “This is disrupting our search for extraterrestrials and asking, ‘Are we alone in the universe? Are there creatures other than us? It makes it difficult for us to find answers to questions like these.” He said.
“This is an emerging problem, this problem has only occurred with orders we’ve been trying to place for the past few months.”
Digging cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum connect computers to a global network and use them to perform complex math.
This process is part of validating transactions made by people using these digital coins.
As a reward for this work, miners profit from this by receiving a small payment of cryptocurrencies.
GPUs are high-performance chips and not just used to run computer games – these chips are stacked by Bitcoin miners, radio-astronomers, and those who want to process large amounts of data in certain applications,
“We try to look at as many frequency channels as possible on Seti because we don’t know at what frequency ET is broadcasting,” said Dr Werthimer, chief engineer at the Berkeley Seti Research Center.. We try to look at different types of signals whenever possible – are they broadcasting on the AM frequency or on the FM frequency, what method of communication do they use?”
“This operation requires a lot of computing power.”
GPUs are an important part of the Hera radio-telescope in South Africa.
Dr Werthimer also said that around 100 GPUs are used in some telescopes to process data in the large listening arrays of the Berkeley Set.
These arrays can pick out even the slightest radio frequency in the universe from outside our solar system – mostly waves from natural phenomena such as colliding stars.
Seti scientists are working at two observatories to expand their data analysis capabilities. – Green Bank in West Virginia and Parkes in Australia.
But they have been hit by GPU shortages.
Dr Werthimer “We have capital, we have contacted suppliers as well. but all they tell us is ‘We don’t have it right now’.”
Earlier this year, it was reported many times that video gamers were also hit by the rise in price of GPUs, with the rise of Ethereum mining, which can be done with GPUs designed for consumers.
Main In a conference speech last week, Nvidia chief executive told investors that the company “is doing a lot to close the gap between supply and demand to bring GPUs to market.” He said he was working”.