IBM Launches BitCoin Like Blockchain Technology To Get Ahead

Or rather, International Business Machines has announced that it will be making a big push to utilise the same blockchain technology that underpins crypto currency BitCoin.

In a statement on its website, IBM unleashed a slew of announcements and investments yesterday all centred around the how it will look to find business solutions based on the emergent and rapidly evolving blockchain technology as a service

IBM has  thrown its hat and its considerable weight behind “distributed ledger or blockchain technology for real world applications.” Altogether IBM has said that there are more than 100 technical architects working  on trying to fast-track blockchain applications for businesses.

The announcement is seen by many as just the first round by IBM to try and charge into the blockchain industry with a working gambit that its offering is better than anyone else’s. It hopes to be at the forefront of what it think will change the way many multinationals do business.

IBM’s new strategy was unveiled as presenting blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS), and rather than being a separate undertaking, will instead be combined with existing company assets like its primary IT system for the world’s top banks, IBM z Systems.

Crucially, in an effort to encourage developers, BaaS will also be used in IBM’s dev workshop, Bluemix Garage, and also the Watson Internet of Things platform.

Seeking rapid growth

IBM also announced that it had dropped a substantial amount of resources to developing standards for the use of blockchain in the open-source Linux Foundation Collaborative Project, Hyper Ledger. The tech giant has devoted 35 researchers and software engineers to writing 44,000 lines of code for the project.

IBM has also announced the formation of collaborative spaces for block chain development in 4 of the world’s major financial hubs. (London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo)

The “IBM garages” will hopefully accelerate the design, development and implementation of blockchain for business, and bring together IBM experts and developers in the one place.

IBM becomes the second major tech giant to launch a BaaS. Microsoft unveiled its platform for blockchain development last October.