Olsen Su, Head of Bitmain’s Global Mining Industry: Analysis of China’s Mining Farm Solutions

From September 21 to September 23, 2018, the Global Digital Currency Ecological Industry Chain Summit and Mining Exchange Summit was held in Tbilisi, Georgia. The summit will gather more than 30 top industry experts, more than 50 top industry crypto mining companies and more than 1,000 participants, including Bitmain founder Wu Jihan, Bitcoin Jesus Roger Vera, Bikan CEO Yu Fang and other mining machine manufacturers, senior miners, mining pools and computing power owners. The summit is committed to bringing together the most senior and innovative minds in the industry to exchange ideas, find breakthroughs and create opportunities.

At the Mining Exchange Summit, Olsen SU, global head of mining at Bitmain, explained the details of the standard mining farm solution in China. Qubi.com has obtained exclusive authorization from the conference organizer. The following is the full content of the speech:

I am very sorry. Now more and more minerals are built in places with abundant energy. For example, our energy base is located in places with abundant coal and water resources. This is the energy base. In the future, our mining farms will be combined with the energy base to form a complex. Our digital currency mining is to use these energies to improve the efficiency of the complex. From this picture, you can see that the energy complex is roughly divided into four parts. The first is power generation. Our energy can be thermal power or natural gas. The second is power transmission, which is high-voltage power transmission. The power generation level is 25 kilovolts, and the high-voltage power transmission is 220 to 500 kilovolts. The third part is our power distribution part. The miners present here have more contact with it. We reduce the voltage from 110 kilovolts to 35 kilovolts, and finally become 400 volts. The electricity used in our mines is 400 volts, which can be connected to the mining machine for operation. These are the four major parts.

How can the energy complex obtain greater benefits? What can the energy complex do? How can the energy base and Bitcoin mining be combined? Let's assume that in the current electricity market, the price of Internet access is changing, the price of Bitcoin is changing, and we find a balance so that the price of Bitcoin and the price of electricity Internet access can reach a maximum benefit. For example, when the electricity consumption is relatively high, higher than Bitcoin mining, the electricity can be sold to the power grid and other users of the power grid. When the price of Bitcoin is relatively high, it can be consumed locally and the electricity can be sold locally. How to cooperate with the existing bases and how to build an energy complex are what we need to think about in the future.

Mineral resources are growing very rapidly. Let me talk about standardized solutions.

Standardized solutions range from prices in different regions to specific application levels, including electrical and water systems. Mining farms need to understand the infrastructure architecture, from building power supply systems, HVAC, fire protection, IT systems, etc. Each system has many subdivisions. I mainly talk about the power supply system, which is a relatively important part of the entire mine, including transformers and distribution cabinets. The second more important thing is the ventilation of the mine. Because mining consumes a lot of energy, you have to separate the energy of cold air and hot air, so you use cooling towers, as well as water and electricity systems, ventilation and exhaust systems, which are all more important in the system.

After the infrastructure architecture is clearly understood, we need to evaluate the site. Four sites will evaluate the mine from the perspectives of quality environment, market environment, urban supporting environment, and cost factors. We consider cost factors, urban supporting facilities, whether there are substations nearby, and how the market power supply is divided into installments. If the local resources are suitable for us to build a mine, we will design the mine.

After the mine is designed, it is divided into a design process. We now propose a concept of modular design. We will focus on user needs and the power supply provided to users, including shelf issues and corresponding PD standardization. We will integrate everything together, conduct 3D modeling, standardization, and a simulation experiment.

Our team's design is OK and can be implemented in any process. Below I will briefly introduce our mine standardization solution through several scenarios.

In China, we have a 3 MW transformer, a 3 MW module, 10 modules are 30 MW, and 30 modules may be 100 MW. This is flexible expansion and is done for global customer standards. Flexible expansion standard deployment is divided into two categories. The first category is air cooling design, and the second category is water cooling design. There are three design schemes for air cooling, and there are two for water cooling. The first is building-type, and the second is ANTBOX. In this way, air enters from one side, and one side is cold air. There is a water curtain and a filter. After filtering, it enters our mine. The mine is in the middle of a very long factory building. Through standardization, there are several standardized modules in it, including standardization of frames and channels. For shelves, there is a baffle at the back and a cold air in front. The wind zone and the hot air zone are behind it. This is standardization, and there is also system standardization. Each module of the entire electrical system is set up separately. It is not expected that they will be stable and independent of each other. Then there is the standardization of buildings. You can see that there are 17 factory buildings on this site. Each module is a standardized facade solution. This is a two-story building with blinds and a ventilation vent under the building and a fan on top. You can see that the picture on the right is of a factory building with an isolation inside, where the glass is. The hot air is discharged through the fan on the roof. This is a solution we have developed in Sichuan ANTBOX. Our ANTBOX can adapt to mountainous areas. It is a standardized product that can be deployed quickly.

Let's take a look at water cooling. This is the schematic diagram of air cooling. Under the fan condition, the outside air enters the fan and the hot air is discharged to the outside. It is suitable for the northern hemisphere, such as Mongolia, where the external humidity is relatively low. This solution is suitable for high temperature and high humidity environments, such as southern China. This solution is not very suitable. Under such high temperature and high humidity conditions, we recommend adopting a water cooling solution. Let me introduce the water cooling solution below.

Let me show you a video of a water cooling solution. Now there is a standardized solution. We also have standardized designs, including cold source systems and modular energy systems. This system is relatively independent, stable and reliable. The electrical system is the same, and it is also modular to achieve stability and reliability. Water cooling can be placed on four or five layers, and air cooling only has one layer. Some places with relatively small sites can adopt high-density solutions. The principle of the water cooling system is that the water cooling system is composed of cooling towers and water pumps, which turns water into a cooling water circulation system, including a water circulation system, to discharge heat. After I introduce the second mineral solution, we directly transform electricity from the existing substations. In the future, when we build a large-scale mine of 200 megawatts or 500 megawatts, we need to build a 110 kV or 220 kV substation. We will provide you with a complete set of solutions for building substations. We also use modular design and prefabrication design. Generally, it takes one year to build a substation according to traditional methods. Through modular construction, we can complete the construction of a substation in 3 to 6 months.

Next, I will introduce the cases of our mining farms around the world. This is a mining farm in Inner Mongolia. This mining farm has a single-row air-cooling design and four factory buildings. Each factory building has 6 megawatts. You can see that in the middle of the picture, there is a transformer, which is discharged outward through ventilation on both sides. This is an isolation, a hot air area, which isolates it from the cold area in front. These small holes are the parts where the fans of the mining machines collect air. This is a mining farm we have in Ningxia. There are 5 parks in one factory building, and the park is planned to be 100 megawatts. This factory building has two floors. The lower floor is for discharge equipment. The air goes from the first floor to the second floor, through the grille plate, which is ventilated, or the floor has holes, and comes up into the mining machine and is discharged to the hot air area, which is the closed part, and is discharged to the water cooling area through the fan. This heat dissipation system and stability are very good, and it is a solution we adopt in China.

There are 108 ANTBOXs, each of which is 5,000 kilowatts. The area of ​​this place is very small, so we put the ANTBOX in a very small configuration to meet the placement of so many machines. This is a project we are building. It is a single-row factory building, each factory building is 12.5 megawatts, and the park has a total of 200 megawatts. What does it include? Including computer rooms, each computer room is 12.5 megawatts, there is a 225 kV substation, the area of ​​a single factory building is 1,200 square meters, and the power distribution rate is relatively high.

Let me tell you about our ANTBOX. The first generation product is for 327 mining machines. This picture is ANTBOX20, which is a standard one and can be shipped all over the world. The first one is for 324 units, and the second one is for 288 units. It is to meet the needs of global mining customers and miners. The second one can be quickly shipped to various places. The third ANTBOX is designed for water cooling. The first generation can hold 216 units. The external dimensions are also a standard container × 2.5 meters, which can accommodate 216 units. The water temperature of the entire inlet is controlled at 20 to 40 degrees, the inlet temperature difference is less than 10 degrees, and the water flow is 10 to 80 cubic meters per hour.

There are some standardized products inside the container, which can be sold to various users. Now we can see that the mineral ratio is 5:6. This is a modular design. There are many switches inside, and the racks are also isolated from hot and cold. This is because we want to adopt different design schemes according to different global markets. According to different markets, we have obtained 3C certification, UA certification and DI certification (sound) to meet customer needs and standards.

Compared with the power distribution cabinet, it is PDU, which is a standardized product. One PDU can carry 15 S9 pumps. Our sockets are C13 and C14, which can be used with 3C or other three standards. This PDU has a switch that can control the entire background and can be disconnected. For this model, we will put the switch... The size is about 1.1 meters long according to the shelf. The rated current and voltage are consistent with the parameters of the motor and 15. We have designed 12 network interfaces. This is a customized product. The two interfaces in the lower right corner are one input and one output. There is no problem with 16 mining machines. The mining machines can be hosted by the switch. This is a highly integrated product. We are now selling it to customers as a product.

This concludes my sharing on our standard mineral solutions and rapid response to global changes. Thank you.