Huawei Enters An Agreement With PBoC’s Digital Currency Research Wing

China’s telecommunications giant Huawei has recently signed an agreement to work with the Digital Currency Research Unit of China’s central bank - People’s Bank of China (PBoC).

The statement of the agreement appeared on Huawei’s WeChat channel earlier this week on Monday, November 4. Dubbed as the fintech research agreement between the two, the deal was signed in Huawei’s Shenzhen headquarters in presence of PBoC deputy governor Fan Yifei.

No further details regarding this agreement are available at this point, but it is very much possible that tech giant Huawei can offer PBoC the technical support required for its CBDC project or other blockchain projects.

The Chinese government has been recently giving a major push to blockchain development as the country prepares itself to lead the way in the next technological revolution. Recently, China also passed a law for the state-sanctioned digital currency to accommodate its CBDC plans.

On the other hand, Huawei has also been working on blockchain projects over the last few years. Last year in April 2018, Huawei launched its enterprise-grade Blockchain-As-A-Service (BaaS) platform.

Also, two weeks back, Chinese president Xi Jinping asked local companies and organizations to accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology. “We must take blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies, clarify the main directions, increase investment, focus on a number of key technologies, and accelerate the development of blockchain and industrial innovation,” he said.

In another news, China’s local publication Global Times reported that the Asian economic giant is working on blockchain-based identity systems as part of its smart city infrastructure development.

The publication states that the newly developed ID system was launched by three institutes in the Shijiazhuang city. As part of the project each of these smart cities will get a unique global digital ID facilitating improved connectivity and data-sharing among them.

Zhang Chao, director of the Zhongguancun Industry and Information Research Institute of Two-dimensional Code Technology, said that the blockchain-based ID system will be developed in-house in China considering security parameters.

He added: "The system will be independently distributed and managed by China, with a unified distribution rule, a resolution of distributed storage and tamper-resistant code."