BAIDU’S BLOCKCHAIN-AS-A-SERVICE PLATFORM
Most people are all too aware of how Baidu has shown a keen interest in blockchain technology. Having one of China’s largest companies looking into this technology is widely considered to be a major vote of confidence. However, there were always people doubting whether or not Baidu would ever do something with this technology in terms of a commercial product. That wait is now finally over, as the company unveiled Baidu Trust to the masses last week.
Baidu Trust is a blockchain-as-a-service platform. Baidu is not the first major company to have offered such solutions. Microsoft hosts many blockchain-as-a-service solutions through its Azure platform. Unlike those projects, however, this new service is built from the ground up. All of the technology has been developed internally, which seems to hint at this being more of a private ledger than anything else. Even so, the Baidu Trust project could still be very successful in its own right.
The company describes this platform as an efficient and low-cost traceability and trading platform. Not only is it ideal for digital currencies of all kinds, but it will also play a role in terms of payments and settlement. Baidu Trust can also be used for digital ticketing, bank credit management, exchange-traded securities, and other activities. It is evident the Chinese giant hopes to tap into as many different markets as possible, although it will take a lot of time to do so successfully.
Moreover, Baidu has shared how its new blockchain-as-a-service product has been applied to asset securitization and asset exchange. As a result, the company is responsible for building China’s first asset-backed securities exchange products using blockchain technology. Given the country’s rather negative stance on digital currencies, it is remarkable how China still has high hopes for blockchain technology and distributed ledgers. Whether or not we will see new currencies issued on this BaaS platform remains to be determined.
It will be intriguing to see how companies and developers approach Baidu Trust, considering that it focuses on a wide range of use cases. It is evident the blockchain can be used to transform many aspects of daily life, even though not every task requires a distributed ledger either. Baidu says it aims to implement blockchain technologies in various other industries including artificial intelligence, unmanned vehicles, and distributed computing.
It is also important to note that this blockchain-as-a-service platform has been operational since late July of 2017. At that time, the project entered private beta testing. After nearly six months of collecting data, the platform has now been unveiled and opened to the public. So far, no major projects have been announced for this platform, but things tend to move rather quickly in the world of blockchain technology. Moreover, it is now up to Baidu’s competitors to come up with their own BaaS platforms in the near future.