Baidu joins Hyperledger, BATJ enters the market, how do Internet giants seize the blockchain?

On October 17, Hyperledger’s official website announced that Internet giant Baidu has joined the Hyperledger project and become a premier member. This is the second Chinese member in the Hyperledger premier member queue after Wanda.

Hyperledger has a luxurious lineup of top members, including DAH, itBit, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, R3, Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Chicago Board of Trade, Deutsche Börse, Accenture, Fujitsu, JPMorgan Chase, NEC, SAP, etc., covering technology industry giants, Wall Street financial giants, financial industry organizations and blockchain startups.

Since the beginning of 2016, Hyperledger has grown to more than 160 members, including a variety of industries such as finance, healthcare, IoT and aviation. Regarding joining the Hyperledger, Baidu Vice President Zhang Xuyang said:

“Over the past 17 years, we have listened carefully to our users and worked hard to fulfill our mission. We believe blockchain technology will allow us to better tailor our search technology to our users’ needs and improve the way we optimize for local tastes and preferences. We are excited to be part of Hyperledger and look forward to working with other members to advance open blockchain solutions.”

Baidu: Catching up and making great strides forward

Relying on the Chinese search engine, with its portal and platform advantages, and based on its accumulated technology and R&D capabilities, Baidu, which has lagged behind BAT a bit, has begun to strengthen its layout in the fields of blockchain and AI in the past two years.

Baidu's first statement in the blockchain field was its large investment in Circle. On June 23, 2016, Circle announced that it had received a $60 million Series D investment from a Chinese consortium, led by IDG, and followed by industry giants such as Baidu, CICC, Everbright Investment Management, Wanxiang and CreditEase.

Circle focuses on blockchain-based payment applications. In Baidu's financial business, payment is a major shortcoming compared to Tencent and Alibaba. This investment is also seen as an attempt by Baidu to strengthen its payment layout.

This year, Baidu Finance once again exerted its strength on blockchain. In May, Baidu Finance and its partners including Baiqian Leasing and Huaneng Trust jointly issued the first domestic ABS project supported by blockchain technology, with an issuance scale of 424 million yuan; on August 17, the Shanghai Stock Exchange approved the "Baidu-Changan Xinsheng-Tianfeng 2017 First Phase Asset-Backed Special Plan", which is the first ABS based on blockchain technology in the market, with a total issuance scale of 400 million yuan. The products are divided into three tiers: priority A (85%, AAA rating), priority B (6%, AA rating) and secondary, and the underlying assets are automobile consumer credit. This also marks that Baidu Finance has successively achieved the successful implementation of blockchain technology in the over-the-counter and on-the-counter ABS markets.

Now, Baidu has joined Hyperledger and become a core board member. It is unknown whether Baidu, which has fallen behind in the past two years, can regain some ground through blockchain.

Alibaba: Incorporate into strategy and make comprehensive layout

Compared with Baidu, Alibaba has already launched a comprehensive layout and multiple attempts in blockchain.

As early as July last year, Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Alibaba, first applied blockchain technology to the Alipay Charity Donation Platform, recording the life cycle of each payment on the blockchain, solving the industry pain point of how to ensure the best use of resources and the transparency of charitable donation expenditures.

In October 2016, Ali Mail, FaDaDa and FaChain jointly launched an email evidence storage product based on blockchain technology. Through emails and cloud services backed up on FaChain, digital evidence emails can also be used as evidence in court.

In March 2017, Alibaba announced that it had partnered with PwC to develop a transparent and traceable cross-border food supply chain based on blockchain to reduce food fraud. Partners also included Australia Post and nutritional supplement manufacturer Blackmores.

In May 2017, blockchain startup Symbiont received investment from Hang Seng Electronics. It is worth noting that the largest shareholder of Hang Seng Electronics is Alibaba founder Jack Ma. In August, Ali Health announced a cooperation with Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province on the "Medical Alliance + Blockchain" pilot project, applying blockchain to the underlying technical architecture system of Changzhou Medical Alliance to solve the "information island" and data security problems that have long plagued medical institutions.

At this year's Yunqi Conference, Ant Financial announced its technology layout for the first time - the "BASIC" strategy. BASIC corresponds to five major areas: Blockchain, artificial intelligence, security, IoT and cloud computing. These form the cornerstone of Ant Financial's technology openness, and on this basis, three major capabilities of risk control, credit and connection are extended.

Just recently, Ant Financial also applied blockchain to smart city construction. In October, Ant Financial visited Xiongan New Area to report on the blockchain construction plan, and introduced the Xiongan blockchain construction plan from the aspects of the overall idea of ​​Xiongan New Area blockchain, blockchain design plan, Ant's support for Xiongan, construction path and implementation plan. Chen Gang, member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Governor, Secretary of the Party Working Committee and Director of the Management Committee of Xiongan New Area, listened to the report and put forward specific suggestions for improvement. He hoped that both parties would sign a comprehensive blockchain cooperation agreement and jointly promote the innovative application of blockchain.

Among the Internet giants, Alibaba is obviously more comprehensive and in-depth in its blockchain layout. The inclusion of blockchain in Ant Financial's technology strategy layout also shows Ant Financial's foresight and its determination and courage to lead change.

Tencent: Keep a low profile and focus on alliance chain

Judging from public information, Tencent can be regarded as the earliest BAT giant to be involved in blockchain. WeBank, which was initiated by Tencent, participated in the launch of the country's first financial industry blockchain cooperation organization - Golden Chain Alliance as early as May 2016, and participated in multiple research projects.

In April 2017, Tencent FiT (Payment Infrastructure and Financial Application Line) and Tencent Research Institute officially released Tencent's first blockchain solution white paper: TrustSQL, a trusted blockchain, which aims to build a leading enterprise-level blockchain infrastructure platform. Its application scenarios cover five major areas: authentication and proof, shared ledgers, smart contracts, shared economy, and digital assets.

The blockchain underlying platform BCOS, jointly developed by WeBank, Wanxiang, and Matrix, was fully open sourced in July this year after a year of intensive development and half a year of real production data verification and troubleshooting. Based on the industry background and technical accumulation of the three parties, and a deep understanding of China's national conditions and business models, the BCOS platform has become the first secure, controllable, and commercially available open source blockchain technology platform in China.

JD.com: Focusing on traceability and testing the waters for charity

JD.com, which has joined the BATJ in the past two years, is also unwilling to lag behind in the layout of blockchain. In December last year, JD Cloud's JD Wanxiang Data Service Mall announced that its big data trading platform will use blockchain technology to achieve data traceability and ownership confirmation. This is JD.com's first statement in the blockchain field.

In addition to the big data trading platform, JD.com also applies blockchain to product traceability and anti-counterfeiting and public welfare. In June this year, JD.com Group announced the establishment of the "JD Quality Traceability and Anti-Counterfeiting Alliance". Under the guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other relevant departments, it joined hands with many brands in the fresh food and consumer goods fields to use blockchain technology to build the "JD Blockchain Anti-Counterfeiting Traceability Platform".

At the same time, the blockchain Party Committee tracing technology platform built by JD Y Division and JD Cloud was officially opened to the public, which will be an important part of JD's resources opening to the society. In September, JD Charity, JD Y Division and Beautiful China jointly launched the "Dream Angel Searching Journey" charity project, which was the first blockchain material charity attempt in China.

In the "13th Five-Year National Informatization Plan" issued by the State Council at the end of last year, blockchain was clearly included in the category of strategic cutting-edge technologies. In October this year, the State Council issued guidance on promoting supply chain innovation and application, and mentioned blockchain again. There is no doubt that blockchain, a cutting-edge technology, has attracted attention from all parties, and with the comprehensive layout and in-depth participation of giant companies, the future of blockchain must have great potential and a broader prospect.