ARMONK, N.Y. and NEW YORK,
May 22, 2017 /PRNewswire/
-- Today at CoinDesk Consensus, the world's leading blockchain
conference, Arvind Krishna, senior
vice president, Hybrid Cloud and director, IBM Research, (NYSE:
IBM) delivered a keynote presentation detailing the rapid growth in
blockchain applications in industries from capital markets to
supply chains.
With respect to capital markets, using blockchain to improve
dispute resolution and settlement times can deliver benefits across
boundaries. Krishna noted that an estimated $300 billion in underlying costs of global
commerce can be optimized with blockchain, a powerful statement of
the technology's benefit to industries such as shipping, property
and capital markets. Blockchain will do for transactions what the
Internet did for information.
Krishna provided recommendations for organizations ready to
adopt the technology. First, blockchain must be built in the open.
Open source methods are aimed at providing the transparency,
interoperability and support required to bring emerging
technologies into mainstream adoption. He identified Hyperledger,
the open source collaborative effort created to advance
cross-industry blockchain technologies hosted by the Linux
Foundation, as the best path forward to achieve strength and
technical stability.
Hyperledger Fabric, a blockchain framework based on open
standards to which IBM is an early contributor, demonstrates
powerful properties for cross-industry use. It supports partitioned
execution, permissioned membership and channels to enhance
confidentiality, as well as transaction history and network tools
to strengthen production workloads.
Secondly, it is critical to leverage permissions and identity so
there are no anonymous participants in a blockchain network and
data is consistent and protected -- a critical point for both
enterprises and regulators alike. Finally, blockchains must be
built in a robust technology environment that enables organizations
to remain competitive in global markets: security, confidentiality,
auditability, reliability and scalability.
Krishna identified blockchain's ability to reduce "friction in
transaction systems" as the technology's core benefit, by removing
factors that slow down or interfere with the efficient transfer of
goods and services. What is really going to drive blockchain's
growth is its ability to go "outside the enterprise" and drive
savings across every transaction, Krishna said, adding, "making it
scalable, making it easy, making it possible for a lot more people
to adopt the technology is where a lot of technologies and
companies flounder."
He cited three examples of work IBM is doing to advance
blockchain in a range of industries: Walmart for a food safety
traceability pilot, Maersk's partnership with IBM to develop a
digitized global trade platform, and DTCC's Trade Information
Warehouse service to manage record-keeping and payments in
derivatives trading. The lesson of all of these examples, he
stated, is blockchain's ability to improve the physical world,
achieve GDP benefits for countries and profit growth for
companies.
To support the rapid adoption of blockchain in the enterprise,
IBM recently announced a new an expansion of the blockchain
ecosystem program, the IBM Blockchain Founder Accelerator. The
program is designed to address the key challenges many early
adopters and enterprise developers have identified through the
development of leading blockchain networks. IBM also announced the
largest study to date among C-Suite executives seeking their
perspective on blockchain. Conducted by IBM's Institute for
Business Value, one third of almost 3,000 executives surveyed said
they are using or considering blockchain in their business.
About IBM
IBM is the leader in open-source blockchain solutions built for
the enterprise. As an early member of Hyperledger, an open source
collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain
technologies, IBM is dedicated to supporting the development of
openly-governed blockchains. IBM has worked with more than 400
clients across financial services, supply chains, IoT, risk
management, digital rights management and healthcare to implement
blockchain applications. For more information about IBM Blockchain,
visit www.ibm.com/blockchain.
Contact:
Hannah Slocum
IBM External Relations
1 (978) 877-0105
hslocum@us.ibm.com
To view the original version on PR Newswire,
visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/consensus-2017-from-capital-markets-to-supply-chains-ibm-outlines-how-blockchain-will-reimagine-business-networks-300461719.html
SOURCE IBM