Alibaba’s Ant Group launches blockchain solution for new technologies

Ant Group has also made strategic agreements with Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo to improve AntChain’s accessibility

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba’s online payment subsidiary, Ant Group announced the launch of a new blockchain solution that is aimed at improving transparency and building trust on the blockchain technology in industries with a large number of participants and complex processes.

According to a report by the South China Morning Post, Ant Group, which made the announcement earlier today, has decided to name the new blockchain solution AntChain.

AntChain uses Ant Group’s blockchain with emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and secure computation to develop a novel blockchain-based solution aimed at organizations. Ant Group has revealed that the solution supports more than 50 use cases in IT leasing, shipping, insurance claim processing, cross-border remittances and charitable donations. It is deemed to have the ability to support one billion user accounts and process up to one billion transactions per day.

“Since our inception, building trust has been core to our offer to customers,” said Eric Jing, executive chairman of Ant. “We believe in blockchain’s potential to redefine trust in the digital age, and in solving real-life problems for our customers,” he added.

The Chinese FinTech giant also signed strategic agreements with Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo today to improve the accessibility of AntChain’s IT leasing services for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Ant Group’s AntChain initiative will include the launch of a new workstation to accelerate blockchain applications via built-in software and a dedicated hardware accelerator, the company revealed. The workstation, which is the size of a laptop, has a time-effective setup process and can increase transaction speed by up to 30 percent. With its enhanced security algorithms and hardware encryption acceleration, the workstation ensures secure computation, the company said.

“Blockchain has been developing along with the wave of the digital transformation of traditional industries,” said Li Jieli, general manager of blockchain solutions and innovations at Ant Group.

“The application of industry blockchain is still at an early stage and [it] will support digital transactions, reducing costs in various industries as the digital economy develops,” the manager added.

Ant Group started working in the blockchain space in 2015 and has since then shown remarkable interest in the technology. It began working on commercial blockchain applications last year and currently has over 100 million digital records including transaction details, copyright and property ownership certificates are uploaded onto AntChain every day.