China brings together its digital champions around the blockchain

Six months after the Chinese President's call for accelerated development of the blockchain, the China constitutes a working group. Chinese tech giants like Huawei, Baidu and Tencent. Their priority: common standards.

The blockchain, a revolutionary technology. In October 2019, the Chinese president Xi Jinping called to consider the blockchain as "a technology at the heart of innovation And accelerate its development.

However, this ambition remained to be implemented. A step in this direction has probably just been taken. The Ministry of Technology has formalized the creation of a national committee aimed at defining standards for the blockchain.

Industrial standards to encourage adoption

And to create these standards, the China has therefore brought together its technological giants, including BATX, the equivalent of American GAFAMs. In all, the committee thus brings together 71 companies, among which Baidu, Huawei, Ant Financial (subsidiary of Alibaba) and Tencent.

The new "Technical Committee for Standardization of National Blockchain Technology and Distributed Account Keeping" does not only include manufacturers, however. Public bodies, regulators and academics also participate.

As the name of the committee suggests, these members must therefore work on standards likely to encourage the adoption of blockchain. Interoperability remains an obstacle in this technological field.

The blockchain technologies still often remain little mature. Their transformation potential, particularly in the finance, however encourages States to support its development.

Blockchain, an economic and sovereignty issue

As for the cloud and artificial intelligence, it is a question for the great powers of promoting the emergence of national blockchain champions. The domination of the United States in terms of acquisitions and fundraising has actually eased in 2019 according to PwC.

The development of a blockchain industry is therefore an economic issue for China. But it is also so in terms of sovereignty, technological as well as monetary. The country seems so very active on the CBDC front, the central bank digital currency.

According to Bloomberg, the Bank of China has given the green light to first experiments with its digital currency by banking players. China takes another step towards launching a CBDC. She would thus become the first state in the world to acquire such a currency.