Baidu launches own blockchain open platform

Baidu, China’s search engine giant, launched today its own BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) open platform.

According to the Baidu BaaS website, the platform was built based on its self-developed project and has been successfully implemented in businesses related to asset securitization and exchange.

“Based on the core technology, the platform can help make and trace transactions, and is suitable for the use of digital currency, digital bills, bank credit management, insurance management, and financial auditing, etc,” the website writes.

Baidu falls a bit behind in launching its own blockchain open platform: Tencent has rolled out BaaS service (in Chinese) a couple of months ago.

“We independently developed a complete set of bottom-layer blockchain protocols and actively participated in the formulation of credible blockchain standards for China Institute of Information and Communications,” said Guo Rui, Tencent’s Vice President of Payment Platform and Financial Applications in a forum in Chengdu in November 2017. Guo also stressed that the blockchain industry has entered an era where technology and application scenarios are effectively integrated.

Alibaba, another Chinese tech giant, is also taking actions to leverage develop its own blockchain technology. “We have a team specifically to study that,” Alibaba’s founder and chairman Jack Ma told CNBC last month. “We’ve spent a lot of efforts on blockchain technology at Alibaba.”

In fact, Alibaba’s Ant Financial has used blockchain technology (in Chinese) on its donation platform in Alipay as early as July 2016. AliHealth, Alibaba’s health affiliate, has also rolled out a health service in cooperation with Changzhou city government to integrate blockchain technology with the city’s hospital system to store and transmit medical data with encryption protection.

With Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent all actively investing in blockchain tech, 2018 may well see another boom in blockchain development.