The government blockchain bidding market is active, and "blockchain + policing" has become a trend

The government blockchain bidding market is active, and "blockchain + policing" has become a trend

At present, government bidding is an important way to build blockchain public service facilities and is gradually attracting attention from the industry.

In 2021, the reporter of Securities Daily noticed that many government units have started bidding for blockchain projects. According to incomplete statistics based on the public information of China Bidding and Procurement Network, the reporter found that the "Blockchain + Financial Supervision" platform project of the Finance Bureau of Li County, Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, the "Erhai Guardian" applet project of the Erhai Lake Management Bureau of Dali Prefecture to empower the protection and management of Erhai Lake, and the "Blockchain + Electronic Social Security Card" project of Xinyu City Human Resources and Social Security Bureau have started bidding.

Sun Yi, assistant researcher at Zero One Think Tank, told the Securities Daily reporter that generally speaking, the main purpose of government project bidding is to build public service facilities and promote the implementation and application of technology, while projects such as technical research and policy consulting are rarely carried out through bidding. He further pointed out that "since April 2020, blockchain has been officially included in the scope of new information infrastructure, which has spawned a large demand for blockchain system transformation at the government level. It can also be seen from specific projects that most bidding projects are for the development of blockchain information management systems, blockchain supervision systems, etc. for specific business of government departments, using blockchain technology to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of public services."

Blockchain project bidding, focusing on government affairs

According to the "2020 Government Blockchain Project Bidding Census Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") jointly released by Zero One Think Tank and Digital Asset Research Institute, since the first government blockchain-related bidding project appeared in 2016, as of December 31, 2020, a total of 86 government departments and government-affiliated scientific research institutions have released blockchain-related projects. The bidding units cover 18 provinces, and corporate units are the main force in winning bids for government blockchain projects, of which small and micro enterprises account for more than 60%; in 2020 alone, government blockchain project bidding showed the characteristics of a large number of bids, wide geographical coverage, many participating enterprises, and large winning bid amounts.

Specifically, the number of government bidding projects from 2016 to 2020 was 1, 3, 9, 28, and 72, respectively. The Securities Daily reporter noticed that among the 72 government bidding projects in 2020, the focus areas were different. Among them, application development accounted for the highest proportion, accounting for 67%, and within the application development category, it can be further divided into finance, evidence storage, commerce, government affairs, people's livelihood, network security and other fields. Among them, the number of application development projects in the government affairs field was the largest, at 17; followed by evidence storage and finance.

A reporter from Securities Daily found from the China Tendering and Procurement Network that last year in the government field, there were biddings for projects such as the Harbin Government Service Blockchain Platform Project required by the Harbin Business Environment Construction Supervision Bureau of Heilongjiang Province, the Hangzhou Blockchain Electronic Seal Scenario Application Platform Service Project, and the Guangdong Provincial Government Blockchain Basic Platform Construction.

Among them, the Hangzhou Blockchain Electronic Seal Scenario Application Platform Service Project has a relatively high amount and is relatively typical. It was a project released and tendered by the Hangzhou Data Resources Management Bureau in December 2020, and was eventually won by Ant Blockchain Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. at a price of 18.48 million yuan. It is understood that the platform will provide governments, enterprises, and the public with functions such as trusted circulation, authorized use, and real-person verification of electronic seals based on blockchain technology, and comprehensively solve the pain points in seal making, seal management, and seal use.

Fu Rao, executive director of the International New Economy Research Institute, told the Securities Daily reporter that "blockchain is moving out of research institutes and into everyday life, and the government needs blockchain to empower more specific application scenarios."

In addition, from the perspective of the winning bid amounts of blockchain projects, according to incomplete statistics from a reporter from Securities Daily, there were only 9 projects with winning bid amounts exceeding 5 million yuan from 2016 to 2020, of which 7 were released and completed bid evaluation in 2020.

Specifically, the Xiongan New Area's autonomous and controllable blockchain underlying technology platform project had the highest winning bid amount of 38.51 million yuan; the blockchain comprehensive financial service platform project had a winning bid amount of 35 million yuan; the lowest winning bid amount was for the Jinchang City Network Freight Blockchain Service Platform Construction Project, which was 5.8 million yuan.

It is worth mentioning that the Xiongan New Area's autonomous and controllable blockchain underlying technology platform project is also the project with the largest total bid amount among government blockchain projects to date. It is understood that the project was released on September 30, 2020. It is a comprehensive key infrastructure construction project that will provide a reliable underlying platform for the subsequent blockchain applications in Xiongan New Area and promote the comprehensive integration of blockchain with the economy and society.

Sun Yi said, "The winning amount of the project can reflect the complexity of the project functions and the scale of the project to a certain extent. The overall winning amount of government blockchain projects from 2016 to 2018 was relatively low, indicating that the blockchain projects were still in the initial development stage at that time; in 2019, the number of projects with a value of 500,000 to 3 million yuan gradually increased, and some comprehensive blockchain projects began to appear; in 2020, the overall winning amount of blockchain projects increased, and many projects with a value of tens of millions of yuan appeared, reflecting that government blockchain projects have entered the stage of large-scale blockchain underlying infrastructure construction."

Fu Rao also pointed out that "the winning bid amounts for large projects have set new highs, which means that as technology matures, the construction of large-scale blockchain underlying infrastructure and comprehensive projects will begin to appear."

Bidding is relatively active in Beijing, Guangdong and other places

In addition, looking at the government bidding situation in 2020, according to incomplete statistics, government departments in 18 provinces including Beijing, Guangdong, Fujian, and Shanghai have issued blockchain project bidding notices, and the governments and scientific research institutions participating in blockchain project bidding cover more and more provinces. Judging from the number of biddings in various places, Beijing ranks at the top in terms of both the number of bids and the number of winning bids. Guangdong, Fujian, Shanghai and other places have also shown a very strong development momentum.

"The bidding units are mainly in Beijing, Guangdong and other places. These regions regard blockchain technology as an important part of local information technology innovation in terms of policy orientation. Governments at all levels are also actively carrying out blockchain project construction, and there are many bidding projects." Sun Yi analyzed to the reporter of Securities Daily, "From the perspective of the winning bidders, Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai and other places are in the leading position, reflecting that these regions have more blockchain companies and are relatively strong, which can stand out among the bidding units. At the same time, these regions have rich university resources, which can support enterprises to carry out technological innovation and form their own competitiveness."

Fu Rao agreed with this statement. In an interview with the Securities Daily reporter, he said, "Beijing, Guangdong, and Shanghai, as the main bidding units and covered provinces, are the 'vanguard' of blockchain applications. They are highland for blockchain technological innovation, application demonstration, industrial development, and innovative talents. They have certain reference and reference significance for other provinces in the country to promote blockchain applications in various fields."

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the reporter noticed that in the 2021 government work reports of Beijing and Guangdong, the references to blockchain-related plans mainly tended to "consolidation" and "expansion."

Specifically, based on last year's "strengthening the research and development of key core technologies such as blockchain", Beijing proposed this year to "promote a number of major projects around artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc." and "expand the scale of advantageous industries such as information technology, health care, intelligent manufacturing, blockchain and advanced computing." Guangdong, which has the largest number of blockchain companies, also has a similar statement, proposing to "consolidate the development advantages of digital industries and promote the development and growth of industries such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, and the Internet of Things."

Xia Ping, a member of the Blockchain Committee of the China Computer Society, told the Securities Daily reporter that "since 2019, the public's attention to blockchain has increased significantly. The government has played an important role in promoting the development of blockchain technology. While the government pays full attention to it, it should also be fully aware that the development of blockchain technology still has a long way to go."

Yu Weiren, president of Gyro Research Institute and vice president of Shenzhen Information Service Industry Blockchain Association, told the Securities Daily reporter that "blockchain technology is an important infrastructure for the future digital economy, the next generation of value Internet, and a new competitive track. We are all on the same starting line. Seizing new blockchain heights means seizing future development advantages."

As for the forecast of government blockchain bidding projects this year, Sun Yi said that the bidding market is closely related to the development of the industry. The rapid development of the blockchain industry in 2020 has laid a good foundation for 2021. With a more favorable blockchain policy environment, more complete standards, more active investment and financing, higher level of corporate development, and a more complete industrial chain, the entire industry will continue to maintain its growth momentum for some time to come. The government bidding market will also be more active, bidding projects will further increase, and project types will be more diverse.

He further analyzed that some fields that are currently mainly in the theoretical stage will see more practical applications, and fields such as "blockchain + police" and "blockchain + water conservancy" will become the direction of government bidding; at the same time, with the development of the times, new problems are constantly being raised, and more diversified bidding directions such as "blockchain + vaccine management" and "blockchain + party governance" may also be included in the consideration of local governments. At the same time, due to the promotion of remote work, cross-provincial bidding will be more common, which is also conducive to the construction of blockchain projects in areas with weak blockchain foundations.