China has launched a state-backed research center dedicated to exploring blockchain’s potential and achieving core technological breakthroughs related to the technology.
Based in Beijing, the center “will focus on areas of blockchain regarding fundamental theory, software and hardware, with the aim of developing related key technologies and industrial applications,” the report said.
The Beijing Academy of Blockchain and Edge Computing (BABEC), an entity popular for developing the Chang’an Chain or ChainMaker blockchain, will lead the research center.
Back in 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping said blockchain would play “an important role in the next round of technological innovation and industrial transformation.”
At the time, Xi acknowledged that the application of blockchain technology has been extended to multiple sectors of the economy, including digital finance, the Internet of Things, smart manufacturing, supply chain management, and digital asset trading.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s two main tech industry regulators, also said in guidelines published in 2021 that China will seek to use blockchain broadly across a range of industries by 2030.
Blockchain Usage On The Rise
Over the past couple of years, blockchain usage has seen a spike among various organizations and countries as the technology provides an affordable and efficient avenue to make and receive payments, store data, and build a credit history.
“Indeed, as a test of the staying power of digital assets and blockchains at the core of financial services (and other areas of the global economy), watch what the big banks and mature financial services firms do, not what they say.”
