Zhu Youping: Opportunities of blockchain in new infrastructure, applications need to target five major digital infrastructure areas

New infrastructure will inevitably replace old infrastructure, and digital infrastructure is the main module of new infrastructure. Blockchain is the value Internet, an upgraded version of the Internet, and the infrastructure of infrastructure. Digital infrastructure will inevitably upgrade from the Internet stage to the blockchain stage.

1. New infrastructure must replace old infrastructure

The old infrastructure has reached its ceiling. We cannot rely on the old infrastructure to boost the economy. We must find ways to build new infrastructure. For example, in terms of the old infrastructure of railways, roads and airports, my country's high-speed railways are already very developed, highways have been built to villages, and every county has an airport. my country's real estate has already had an obvious bubble.

Although the digital economy already accounts for a large proportion of my country, it is still in its infancy and there is huge room for development in the future.

Authoritative data shows:

• In 2018, my country's digital economy reached 31.3 trillion yuan, contributing 67.9% to GDP growth and accounting for 34.8% of GDP, 5.5 percentage points lower than the average GDP share of 47 countries in the world;

• From 2016 to 2018, the digital economy maintained a nominal growth of 20.9% for three consecutive years, which was more than ten percentage points higher than the nominal growth rate of GDP in the same period and about 11.7 percentage points higher than the average nominal growth rate of 47 countries in the world.

• In 2018, there were 191 million jobs in my country’s digital economy, accounting for 24.6% of the total employment that year, an increase of 11.5% year-on-year;

• my country's Internet coverage is 61.2%, lagging behind the United States' 87.3%, but my country's mobile Internet speed is 68.2 Mbps, higher than the United States' 41.2.

According to incomplete statistics, as of March 8, 24 provinces, cities and districts across the country have announced investment plans for future key projects, with a total investment of more than 4.8 trillion yuan, of which the total planned investment in 2020 is about 8 trillion yuan.

Our country is a world-famous infrastructure maniac, and now it has the potential to become a digital maniac.

2. Digital infrastructure is the most critical in new infrastructure

Digital infrastructure accounts for four of the seven areas: 5G, ultra-high voltage, AI, big data, industrial Internet, new energy vehicle charging piles, as well as intercity high-speed rail and rail transit.

In fact, my country is currently in a hybrid stage of agricultural society, industrial society and digital society, and is vigorously promoting the digital structural transformation. Digital technology and digital economy are bound to develop rapidly, and are the key to the economy getting out of the downturn and prospering again.

We believe that the layout of digital infrastructure must have a systematic thinking, starting from hardware, software, and data, considering security, simplicity, and efficiency factors, and systematic planning and implementation.

Here we will focus on national security factors.

For example, there are nine root servers in the United States, and four of them are under our control. If the United States cuts off the Internet, what will my country do? The previous dispute between IPv6 and IPv9 also involves national security. The US dollar is one reason why the United States can control the global financial system, and the United States controls global payment settlements through the Internet. In addition to beheading, the United States also cuts off the Internet and payment settlements when it imposes sanctions on Iran.

For example, in the field of chips, we are still very weak, lagging behind the West by 20 to 30 years. For example, some people advocate exchanging masks and new vaccines for Dutch lithography machines, but I am afraid that this will ultimately depend on independent research and development. The General Secretary said that key core technologies cannot be obtained, bought, or begged for.

For example, my country is determined to develop Beidou. The last Beidou satellite was launched into space in May this year and a global network was established. my country's Beidou space-based satellite is not inferior to GPS, but its application is much worse.

We don’t have an operating system for software. Even in blockchain, my country has the most patents, but the core code is still overseas.

In addition to the benefits of saving the cost of banknotes and coins and making them easier to use, doesn’t my country’s development of DCEP also have the benefit of protecting my country’s financial security, even if it does not intend to compete in the international monetary system against the US dollar?

Why did the United States suppress Huawei but not Alibaba and Tencent? Because Huawei is leading in digital infrastructure such as 5G, and the United States is panicking. Alibaba and Tencent are both at the application layer.

3. Digital infrastructure will inevitably drive the Internet to upgrade to blockchain

Blockchain is not mentioned, but it will not be ignored because blockchain is an upgraded version of the Internet.

The Internet improves data efficiency, while blockchain improves value efficiency. Value is more important than information. Blockchain is ten times the Internet and is the advanced stage of the Internet. It is inevitable that the Internet will develop and upgrade to the blockchain stage, and digital infrastructure will certainly follow this trend.

Blockchain is a new thing, and the application of technology is still in the trial and error stage. The application development is not sufficient, and society still needs a cognitive process. But gold will always shine. It is a direction but has not been fully developed, and there is huge room for development.

For example, in this epidemic prevention and control, the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence, etc. have played a very good role, while blockchain has played a relatively small role. But we believe that blockchain is late, but it will not be absent.

In fact, blockchain can do a lot of things during this epidemic. For example:

• Blockchain can also be used in many fields such as public opinion management, rumor refutation, and epidemic data disclosure;

• Blockchain is used for dynamic management of community and enterprise personnel, effectively helping with epidemic prevention and control;

• Blockchain promotes medical data sharing and achievement transformation;

• Blockchain can be used for charity. Trustworthy logistics data allows donated materials to reach specific hospitals and departments directly, so that donors can know clearly what they are donating and feel assured.

• Blockchain is used for traceability of medical products, allowing users to quickly identify counterfeit and substandard products by scanning the code with their mobile phones, thus avoiding the possibility of contracting the virus by using substandard masks;

• The use of blockchain in insurance, especially the use of insurance smart contracts, can greatly speed up insurance claims and help resume work and production;

• Blockchain-based supply chain finance plays a role in the resumption of work and production;

• Blockchain can be used for project collaboration. During the epidemic, companies implemented working from home, and blockchain can help with distributed organizational office work. Some modeled processes can be deployed on the blockchain for automatic execution, and many messages can be shared transparently to increase the degree of automation and collaboration efficiency; and so on.

In order for blockchain to play a role, digital infrastructure must include blockchain infrastructure construction. Blockchain platforms that manage people, data, money, and objects must be built and fully utilized.

Blockchain is an upgraded version of the Internet. At the same time, the new generation of digital technology ABCDI5G is a whole, integrated development, and is the foundation of the future digital economy. For example, as mentioned in the new infrastructure: 5G can improve blockchain TPS; AI can improve blockchain security, and blockchain also has smart contracts; big data is uploaded to the chain through digital fingerprints; the industrial Internet adopts blockchain protocols, etc.

Blockchain is a secure and reliable distributed storage computing, and is the infrastructure of this infrastructure.

4. Blockchain applications must be developed

We can take advantage of the new infrastructure and digital infrastructure to develop blockchain applications.

(1) Financial digital infrastructure, including: DCEP, payment settlement, supply chain finance, insurance, financial markets, etc. Code credit is simple, safe, and efficient. Isolation has been added, and financial security must also be considered.

(2) Enterprise digital infrastructure: enterprise asset tokenization and governance.

The biggest application of blockchain is of course enterprises. When we talk about blockchain reform, it is mainly about the tokenization and governance of enterprise assets.

Through blockchain + token + consensus community, the chain reform builds a governance logic based on the three mechanisms of trust, incentives, and organization. It can be used by all industries and everyone, and it is an inexhaustible driving force for the new century-old wealth model in the digital age!

The recent popularity of DeFi has allowed us to see the technological advantages of blockchain, and many emerging industries based on property certification and decentralized finance (DeFi) have also emerged.

(3) Industrial digital infrastructure: Industrial digitalization, such as chain business, traceability, artworks, cross-border tourism, smart cities, people's livelihood, etc. The Internet of Things, mobile network, and industrial Internet will inevitably be upgraded to the second generation and will inevitably adopt blockchain. 5G+Internet of Things+artificial intelligence+blockchain will become the standard configuration of future smart cities.

(4) Government digital infrastructure: government sharing platform.

Blockchain is a real government affairs sharing platform. To enable data to run and reduce the number of trips for the public, it is necessary to break through data silos and realize data sharing.

For example, after SARS, we established a national infectious disease automatic early warning system to monitor infectious diseases across the country. However, this epidemic has exposed some shortcomings of this system. Using blockchain to create a more open, efficient, reliable, secure and intelligent epidemic monitoring system should be the future development direction.

For example, government services such as instant approval and instant loan are very unique.

Blockchain credit platform, blockchain invoices and accounting revolution, blockchain evidence storage and blockchain courts, etc., these are all basic construction and infrastructure of government affairs.

(5) Regulation of digital infrastructure: regulatory technology development.

Future regulatory technology will require blockchain, such as sandboxes. my country currently has plans to promote sandboxes.