Tuesday is proving to be a good day for the embattled Block Inc CDI (ASX: SQ2) share price.
It's regaining some of its notable losses from its journey on the ASX so far amid news the company – formerly known as Square – will be among the first to test a new blockchain accelerator chip.
At the time of writing, the Block share price is $158.02, 5.24% higher than its previous close.
Let's take a closer look at what might be boosting the fresh-faced ASX stock today.
Block share price surges 5% on Tuesday
The Block share price is moving upwards this week, following up yesterday's 1.8% gain with today's 5% surge.
It's a much-needed boost for the stock. It tumbled 16.5% between listing on 20 January – after absorbing former market favourite, Afterpay – and Friday's close.
The embattled tech sector is also moving higher today, with the S&P/ASX 200 Info Tech Index (ASX: XIJ) and the S&P/ASX All Technology Index (ASX: XTX) gaining 1.05% and 1.03% respectively.
That makes the tech sector the best-performing industry on the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO), which is slumping 0.5% on Tuesday.
It also places Block as the third best-performing ASX 200 share, behind Sims Ltd (ASX: SGM) and SEEK Limited (ASX: SEK).
Could this be boosting Block's stock?
While there's been no news from Block lately, the company's New York listing, Block Inc (NYSE: SQ), surged 3.49% in Monday's session amid news released by Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC).
The computing technology company has announced it's working to create a low-energy blockchain accelerator, and Block will be among 3 companies with first dibs on the technology.
The blockchain tech will be ready to ship later this year, said Intel. It chose the three initial customers due to their sustainability goals.
Senior vice president and general manager at Intel's accelerated computing systems and graphics group, Raja M. Koduri, commented:
Intel Labs has dedicated decades of research into reliable cryptography, hashing techniques and ultra-low voltage circuits. We expect that our circuit innovations will deliver a blockchain accelerator that has over 1000x better performance per watt than mainstream GPUs for SHA-256 based mining.
