Chinese City Unveils a $1.5 Billion Fund To Spur Blockchain Innovations

A Chinese city has unveiled a $1.5 billion fund that is to be used to support blockchain innovations as well as projects. Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu province, unveiled the fund at the inaugural Industrial Public China Summit, in partnership with an alliance of enterprises and government institutes, under the umbrella Zhongguancun Blockchain Industry Alliance.

The city is to use the fund to encourage and assist upcoming and established blockchain companies to establish a base in the province. Among the first beneficiary of the fund is UDAP Foundation, which is a decentralized asset platform for building an internet of assets.

The chairman of Zhongguancun Blockchain Industry Alliance expects the adoption of the technology in the province to bring about countless chains. The chains should lead to more technological breakthroughs, which should help shore up the local economy through the creation of businesses as well as jobs.

Blockchain as an emerging technology is expected to have positive impact on various sectors ranging, from education to science and finance. It is for this reason that China has been increasing its focus as it seeks to spur growth and innovation.

Some of the areas where the government hopes to see the application of the technology include cross-border payments, content as well as healthcare and on intellectual property protection.  China’s President has already made it clear that Blockchain is a breakthrough technology that deserves all the attention.

“A new generation of technology represented by artificial intelligence, quantum information, mobile communications, internet of things and blockchain is accelerating breakthrough applications,” said Mr. Jinping.

The country is currently ranked as number one when it comes blockchain patents, an edge it hopes to maintain given the amount of investments put in place.

The unveiling of the $1.5 billion blockchain fund comes as 3 of China’s biggest telecom companies announced the launch of a blockchain research group.  China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom have come together with the aim of trying to find new use cases of blockchain technology.

The trio are in the process of forming a team that is to explore the blockchain area. The team will have to explore ways the technology can be used to enhance logistics traceability as well as inter-operator clearing and business operations support.

The three companies have already carried a number of independent blockchain projects, underscoring how China continues to be a global leader in exploring use-cases of the emerging technology.