China is soliciting the support of major Chinese tech firms to be part of a special committee that will be in charge of developing the nation's blockchain project. The country's largest hi-tech firms have been asked to help in the development of standards for the use of the technology across various industries.
The companies that had been tapped by the government to become part of the national blockchain committee include telecom equipment manufacturing giant Huawei Technologies, social media, and tech giant Tencent Holdings, fintech firm Ant Financial Services, search giant Baidu, and e-commerce giant JD.com.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced earlier this week that the companies will be part of the so-called National Blockchain and Distributed Accounting Technology Standardization Technical Committee. The newly established committee will be comprised of more than 70 researchers and experts from various local government units, private companies, universities, think tanks, and supercomputing centers.
Most of the companies that had been tapped already have experience utilizing the technology throughout their businesses. Ant Financial recently launched its blockchain platform called OpenChain. Tencent is already using the technology for its gaming and charitable projects.
Serving as the head of the committee will be MIIT vice-minister Chen Zhaoxiong. The move was made as a direct response to China's call for additional investment and research into blockchain technology to integrate the advanced form of digital currency into various industries.
In October last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that he is supportive of the adoption of blockchain technology. Xi had added that he sees the technology as vital in the strengthening of the country's digital economy. The president highlighted the technologies potential applications in enhancing the country's anti-counterfeiting efforts, strengthening its health care systems, and improving its credit checking processes.
Blockchain technology, similar to the ones used in popular cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins, is a novel way of making secure and safe financial transactions. The technology utilizes a public-shared ledger that stores information such as transfers in an efficient and fully secure manner. Unlike traditional digital transactions made through banks, blockchain transactions do not require a central authority and is therefore much more transparent.
Given its characteristics, blockchain technology can provide a lot of benefits, particularly in the finance sector. The technology has proven to be very effective in ensuring safer and more secure money transfers, digital payments, and trading.
Under the State Information Center, China had announced that it would be launching its blockchain-based Service Network initiative next month. The initiative is aimed at helping companies deploy applications based on the technology much faster with government support.
