Volvo owner Geely and Switzerland-based Concordium have signed a deal to establish a joint venture that will provide China-based customers with blockchain technology that can be used to build new business models and create decentralized applications.
The joint venture, which is expected to be operational later this year after regulatory approval is secured, will use Concordium’s blockchain technology to help customers build businesses focused on issues such as digital identity, as well as regulatory and privacy enhancement technologies, according to a joint company statement on Friday.
The new company, 80% of which will be controlled by Geely, will work with Genius & Guru, a wholly owned subsidiary of Geely, to jointly develop commercial application cases and solutions across various industries, the statement said.
The partnership will help Geely and Concordium “explore pathways to build a leading blockchain industry ecology to reduce the cost of trust and provide companies with access to a platform with the tools they need to develop blockchain-based applications,” said Geely CEO Li Donghui.
Blockchain has become a buzzword in China since Xi Jinping in 2019 showed his support for the development of the novel technology, which has huge potential to enable lower costs, faster processing, higher efficiency and increased transparency for industries ranging from banking to cross-border e-commerce.
In September last year, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s Ant Group introduced a blockchain technology-powered international trade payment platform that uses technologies such as artificial intelligence and the internet of things to simplify the process of cross-border trade. The emerging technology has also been adopted in online purchases for the purpose of credibility and transparency thanks to its merit of creating permanent, unalterable and traceable transaction records.
Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com)
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