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

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.

“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 a "Walking encyclopaedia of the future" by NASA and a futurist polymath, is one of the world's most renowned futurists and strategic foresight experts. A serial entrepreneur Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working across the next 50 years, XPotential University, the world's first free futures and foresight university, and the World Futures Forum which works with the United Nations to solve the worlds greatest challenges. 13 times author of the Codex of the Future series, Matthew is an in demand international keynote, acclaimed university lecturer, and host of the hit Fanatical Futurist podcast.

A rare talent in his past Matthew helped build and run several multi-billion dollar business units for Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, and his ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77+ governments, and many of the world's most respected brands including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Disney, EY, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Pepsi Co, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, and many others. He was also the only futurist invited to talk at the UN COP28 held in Dubai alongside world leaders.

Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.