Chinese online retail giant JD.com has announced the launch of “JD Blockchain Open Platform,” a blockchain technology platform that aims to help enterprise clients who don’t have the capabilities necessary to develop their own blockchain applications. The open platform houses an app store which gives enterprises easier access to blockchain bottom layers, tools, and software. The new platform is part of the retailer’s latest Retail as a Service (RaaS) push, in which the company is offering its technology to other companies outside of the JD ecosystem.
According to the company’s press release, the platform “enables customers to create and adjust smart contracts on public and private enterprise clouds with ease.” The company claims that the technology can help enterprises streamline their operations such as tracking and tracing their goods, transaction settlements, digital copyrights among others.
“JD Blockchain Open Platform is a culmination of the expertise and experience in blockchain technology that we initially developed for our own operations,” said Jian Pei, head of big data and smart supply chain at JD.com.
China Pacific Insurance Company is one of the first partners of JD.com to utilize the blockchain open platform and is already applying the technology to deploy a traceable system for e-invoices. The e-invoice system, which assigns unique blockchain ID to each document, is said to be more secure and efficient.
JD.com introduced its blockchain tracing platform last year, which enables customers to track and trace the source and development process of the products and food they purchase. The company claimed that it has implemented their blockchain tracing technology for more than 400 brands.
JD.com is not the first Chinese tech giant to build a Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform. Internet giant Tencent began building a blockchain platform “TrustSQL” for enterprises in 2017. In January, Baidu also launched an open platform that allows enterprise developers to build blockchain-based applications.