Wanxiang announces plans to use Blockchain to underpin it's $30 Billion Smarter Cities program

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By Matthew Griffin Connected Society 26th September 2016

WHYTHIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Blockchains momentum keeps rolling on with another company announcing another major push.

Another company jumped on the blockchain bandwagon in a big way, with Wanxiang’s $30 billion smart city project. The Chinese electric car maker announced the mega-project at last weeks Global Blockchain Summit.

Wanxiang said that it will invest $30 billion into a project that will integrate blockchain technologies with smart city innovations and that the project will involve the purchase of 83 million square feet of land in Hangzhou, where Wanxiang is headquartered.

Industry pundits predict that blockchain technology could be the ideal technology to underpin the Internet of Everything (IoE) because of blockchain’s ability to verify an individual device’s every transaction, communication and change – this type of verification will become crucially important in smart cities where increasing numbers of connected devices will begin spouting data from all corners of the urban environment.

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“We want to use blockchain to manage and monitor IoE devices, and to use it help devices to interact with each other seamlessly, automatically and securely,” said Feng Xiao, vice chairman of Wanxiang.

“Smart appliances can be managed with blockchain.”

this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen an announcement about similarly grand blockchain projects aimed at helping run smarter cities better and more efficiently – earlier this year the government of Dubai announced its in house innovation department will also be integrating blockchain into its smarter cities strategy.

Just how Wanxiang will integrate blockchain with smart city projects is still being worked through but company representatives are in talks with Microsoft and IBM on future collaboration and the project is expected to begin with innovations at the intersection of cars, smart cities and blockchain.

Wanxiang has already shown that it’s keen on blockchain technology with its launch of its $50 million Wanxiang Blockchain Labs.

“We can’t tackle all the use cases that might arise from the smart city project,” said Feng, “that’s why we’re opening it up to use cases from all over the world.”

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin, described as “The Adviser behind the Advisers” and a “Young Kurzweil,” is the founder and CEO of the World Futures Forum and the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures consultancy working across the next 50 years, and is an award winning futurist, and author of “Codex of the Future” series.

Regularly featured in the global media, including AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, RT, Viacom, and WIRED, Matthew’s ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of revolutionary emerging technologies on global culture, industry and society, is unparalleled. Recognised for the past six years as one of the world’s foremost futurists, innovation and strategy experts Matthew is an international speaker who helps governments, investors, multi-nationals and regulators around the world envision, build and lead an inclusive, sustainable future.

A rare talent Matthew’s recent work includes mentoring Lunar XPrize teams, re-envisioning global education and training with the G20, and helping the world’s largest organisations envision and ideate the future of their products and services, industries, and countries.

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