Chinese tech giant, Huawei, is one of the companies to be added to China’s blockchain committee as the country looks set to lead the world in this emerging sector.
Huawei Joins China’s Blockchain Committee
China is planning to lead the growth of the emerging blockchain sector, and it is making moves to actualize this plan. The country is adding tech giants, such as Huawei, Tencent, and JD.com, to the new blockchain committee to help spur the growth of the emerging technology.
The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) published a list on Sunday, revealing all the 71 companies and public entities that have joined the new blockchain committee. According to the agency, the new blockchain committee is called the “National Blockchain and Distributed Accounting Technology Standardization Technical Committee.” The purpose of the formation of this group is to discuss and set industry standards for the blockchain and distributed ledger technology.
The committee is comprised of the biggest tech giants in the country. China added its largest technology companies, including Huawei, Tencent, Baidu, Ant Financial, and JD.com. The list is not restricted to only technology, fintech, and eCommerce companies. Some of the country’s technical universities and relevant enforcement agencies have also sent delegations to the committee as they could prove key in blockchain and DLT research and development.
In addition to that, a few sectors of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), involved in technological research (especially the digital yuan initiative), are also part of the committee. Other sectors represented in the committee include insurance and banking giants Ping An and Qianhai Wezhong Bank. Car component manufacturer Wan Xiang was also added to the new blockchain committee.
China’s Blockchain Committee Could Drive Blockchain Adoption
The coming together of the most prominent players of various sectors of the economy to spearhead the development and regulation of blockchain technology in China could be in line with President Xi Jinping’s speech in October where he urged China to seize the opportunity and drive technological innovation in their industries using blockchain technology.
The regulation and standard to be set by this new blockchain committee could serve as a guide to other regulators around the world. The MIIT has been working hard to ensure that China stays in the lead in terms of blockchain technology and digital assets. In 2018, an affiliated research group started publicly ranking and assessing cryptocurrencies based on their technological capabilities and use cases.
Huawei has been calling for China to delve into the blockchain sector and to lead the innovation in the area. After Facebook revealed its Libra project last summer, the CEO of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, urged the Chinese government to develop its own national digital asset to rival the Libra coin. In 2018, Huawei also launched its first smartphone-compatible cryptocurrency wallet apps in addition to its blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform. Its BaaS platform makes it possible for users to write their own smart contracts.
Although China’s new blockchain members are mostly tech companies, only a few of them are heavily involved in developing or using blockchain technology. One such company is Conflux, which is a startup that is working on developing scaling solutions. The company is backed financially by the Shanghai government, which granted it a massive grant in December last year.
Regardless, China seems to be taking the growth and development of the blockchain sector very seriously, and they could be the first country in the world to initiate mass adoption of the new technology in various sectors of their economy.