Journalist: Teresa Wang, April Cho
In China and America, many noteworthy enterprises have joined the blockchain block party in 2018. Most recently, Amazon joined behemoths like IBM, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu and others in rolling out its very own enterprise blockchain service. An overview and analysis of the types of blockchain enterprises that emerge in America versus China yield key insights into the differences in the needs and structures of corporations in the two countries.
US enterprise blockchains have focused on providing services that encourage developers to build blockchain applications using the services’ own protocols or cloud services. However, enterprise blockchains in China not only provide development platforms with friendlier user experiences for developers , but also focus on integrating blockchain technology directly into their existing business units (i.e. Taobao, WeChat pay, Baidu encyclopedia).
For the uninitiated, we’ve compiled a list of the top characteristics and analysis of the leading US and Chinese enterprises incorporating blockchain technology into their services:
Enterprise Blockchain in China
China’s three tech giants - Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (endearingly grouped into a single entity called BAT by Sinophiles) are actively involved in this enterprise blockchain arm race. Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent all have their own enterprise cloud platforms, but their blockchain products and strategy are different. The differences are the result of different infrastructure and business units.
In contrary to Amazon and IBM’s strategy, I also found it interesting that all three companies developed their public or private chains. It is not only a competition against cloud enterprise blockchain but also the “chain”. Here’s an overview of the three services:
Alibaba is the most active blockchain players among BAT. It is also one of the world largest blockchain patent holders and the most popular enterprise cloud provider in China. Alibaba’s blockchain services consist of two sister companies: Alibaba Cloud and Alipay. Blockchain service on Alibaba Cloud is similar to IBM Hyperledger. Alibaba also uses Hyperledger as underlying framework, provides integration with Kubernetes and other Alibaba Cloud services. Alipay blockchain is a private blockchain network for supply chain traceability and charity purposes. Alibaba deployed traceability blockchain during Singles’ Day to enhance customer trust. Since Alibaba is a tech conglomerate with services ranged from ecommerce, finance to enterprise cloud, it is able to deploy and adopt blockchain at a massive scale.
Tencent has its public blockchain called TrustSQL, companies are able to build their DApp on top of the blockchain or utilize the DAPP. Tencent also applied TrustSQL on WeChat Red Envelope, a service that allows WeChat users to send money to each other.
Baidu developed its own blockchain infrastructure called XuperChain. Baidu even got Baidu Baike, Chinese versions of Wikipedia, on XuperChain. I personally have no idea how functional it is, since Baidu Baike feels exactly the same to me. Apart from Baidu Baike, Baidu released an entertainment DApp and an image copyright DApp.
Enterprise Blockchain in America
Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Accenture have incorporated blockchain technology into their cloud services. All are on the market to provide services as an enterprise blockchain application. While there is consensus among tech and financial executives (to the tune of 70%) that IBM leads the market for enterprise blockchain services, this may be set to change with the entrance of Amazon.
Enterprise blockchain in the US has made significant strides in 2018. Here are the characteristics of the three tech companies set to make the most impact in the enterprise blockchain arms race in 2019: Amazon, IBM and Microsoft. Notably, all three companies focus on private blockchains for commercial deployment.
In 2018, IBM led the market for enterprise blockchain solutions and services. Bluemix’s cloud platform provides software-as-a-service solutions to businesses. The company integrated blockchain services with Hyperledger Fabric to simplify the development process for incorporating blockchain technology to serve various business needs.
Since then, IBM has secured deals with a number of key businesses for industries ripe to deploy the technology. Most notable among these is a partnership between IBM and shipping company Maersk under the name TradeLens. TradeLens which has 94 participating firms as of August 9, 2018 and has completed the pilot program, is intended to simplify logistics and increase transparency in the industry. The entire endeavor will be built on the IBM Blockchain platform. Whether this move to target the global shipping industry, set to rise in 2018, remains to be seen.
Amazon’s move into blockchain has begun with the introduction of two key services. Amazon Managed Blockchain and QLDB. The former is a “fully managed service that makes it easy to create and manage scalable blockchain networks.” The second service, QLDB is a “fully managed ledger database” that allows enterprises to track trends in their data easily. Despite IBM’s first mover advantage, Amazon seems to be well- positioned to lead in the group of companies entering the market for blockchain enterprise stateside. AWS single-handedly accounted for 43% increase in Amazon’s revenues to $17.5 billion last year and accounted for 10% of its top line.
Microsoft is notable because it was the first incorporate blockchain technology into its cloud computing platform and services with Azure, a cloud services platform with integrated tools and services for businesses. Azure’s blockchain application called Blockchain Workbench is currently in preview mode. It’s value proposition is that the platform greatly reduces the infrastructure development time required for blockchain applications, a key barrier to the technology’s mass adoption.
Enterprise Blockchain in the US-Chinese Tech Arms Race
Has blockchain finally made the big leagues? Perhaps. In America, companies are offering blockchain as part of its suite of existing cloud services for businesses. Companies largely seem to be testing the waters by providing platforms that make it easier to use the technology. Overall, it seems tech companies have bet on the potential of blockchain for businesses using private clouds.
In China, many companies face the issue of corporate accountability and consumer trust. Industry titans like Alibaba, Tencent and QQ have directly incorporated the technology into their own supply chains to solve issues like consumer trust. For China, a core consideration will be whether these processes do in-fact provide returns by improving relations with consumers.
Regardless, 2018 is notable for blockchain enterprise for two reasons. In the cost-benefit analysis between the cost of developing a new blockchain platform and the benefit of being an early adopter, many have sided with the latter. The second is that the two tech arms race as the countries aim to gain an edge in emerging technologies like AI or robotics has gripped blockchain as well. In 2019, we can look forward to examining the ways businesses us these BaaS platforms to meet their needs.
