On July 28, as the first officially registered blockchain association in Guangdong province, Guangzhou Blockchain Industry Association was formally established in Huangpu District and Guangzhou Development District(GDD), filling the gap in the area of blockchain in Guangzhou.

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum(Davos Forum) said, since the invention of the steam engine, electricity and computer, we have ushered in the fourth industrial revolution - the digital revolution. While The blockchain technology is one of results in this revolution and hailed as “the most important innovation in finance” over the past 500 years by the Wall Street Journal.

It is reported that this association, located in the GDD of the Huangpu District, is a high-end professional industry organizations in the field of blockchain technology,which is available to Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area. It will build four platforms, consisting of blockchain general development platform, blockchain mass entrepreneurship and innovation platform (maker space and incubator), blockchain technology innovation platform (new research and development institution), blockchain industry public service platform, promoting the development the digital economic revolution in the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area.

In face of this opportunity, a number of initiative projects were put forward. At the meeting, the GDD Investment Promotion Agency, Guangzhou Blockchain Industry Association and Ali Health signed an agreement to establish the first domestic medical blockchain joint laboratory. They will make the hospital of GDD and its four subordinate community health centers as the service carrier and make comprehensive cooperation in the health care, the interconnection and intercommunication of the information and other fields. The first Hyperledger Fabric cooperation platform of IBM will be deployed in Guangzhou Science City, which will launch practical exploration in supply chain finance.

1. An interpolation-resistant Hyperledger

In May, WannaCry, a blackmail virus, swept the world. Many universities and institutions in China were infected by this virus. The only way to clear this virus is, according to the hacker request, to pay ransom in bitcoin (a virtual currency) . Since then, bitcoin has become known among more people.

Why does hackers use bitcoin as a means of payment? A major reason is the decentralization and anonymity of bitcoin. That's to say, these hackers' bitcoin accounts cannot be frozen by any agency, and due to the data's interactions following fixed algorithms and privacy encryption, they can escape from being traced.

The virtual currency represented by bitcoin is the most successful application of blockchain technology. Under the condition of no intermediary institutions being involved in, for example, without the bank participating in operation and management, both sides holding bitcoins can trust each other to complete the transfer behaviour mutual trust, and keep operation stable for many years.

In fact, blockchain is not a single technology, but the result of multiple technological integration. These techniques are combined with new structures to form a new way of data recording, storing and expressing .

"This is a hyperledger." Huang Jin, the IBM’s artificial intelligence chief scientist and chief architect in Greater China said, from the perspective of the data, blockchain is a distributed database that could not be changed, "whenever some behavior occurs, such as trading, uploading and modifying, it will be recorded and cannot be erased. It is highly transparent".

“Moreover, the "distributed" is embodied in not only the distributed storage of data, but also the distributed record of data. Anyone can engage in the record of information data as well as their all behaviors are firstly recorded separately in a "small platform", and then gathered into a "platform pool". The data information of the pool is maintained and utilized by participants of all systems without through any third party. This is the biggest difference between the blockchain and the cloud platform, because the cloud platform is managed by an administrator, which is no guarantee of data security and ownership.” Huang explained.

Actually, the application fields of this technology are far more than the virtual currency. At present, more applications are based on the interpolation-resistant feature of the blockchain, which can be used in some registration such as property certificate registration, bond transaction registration and custody registration

Yan Zhihong, a professor at the University of Macao, told the reporter blockchain is conducive to constructing an open and reliable supply chain. As long as the car owner wonders if each part is produced in the original factory and supplied by the formal channel or consumers want to know the food production, distribution and transportation, blockchain will trace the information of each part, which is helpful to the original channel management and government market supervision.

At the same time, the association also signed a cooperation agreement with IBM China at the meeting, marking that the IBM's first hyperledger Fabric cooperation platform project will be deployed in the Guangzhou Science City and the cooperation in supply chain finance will be launched.

“The inter-enterprise transactions in the district will fully practice the electronic contracts through the blockchain technology in six months earliest." Huang said, “The platform will firstly face the more than 6,000 enterprises in the district and all transactions of these enterprise will be implemented in the platform. If so, they can view the integrity records, corporate financial status, the information and contract archiving of transactions at any time.”

The GDD Investment Promotion Bureau, Guangzhou Blockchain Industry Association and Ali Health signed an agreement to establish the first domestic medical blockchain joint laboratory. They will play the hospital of GDD and its four subordinate community health centers as the service carrier and make comprehensive cooperation in the health care, the interconnection and the intercommunication of the information as well as other fields. In addition, the several association members will jointly build the first blockchain innovation base in Guangdong as well as create the largest and the most widely distributed blockchain professional maker space and incubator in China.

 In the 11^th Guangzhou Municipal CPC Congress report, it pointed out that Guangzhou should develop cutting-edge technologies such as blockchain. Meanwhile, Guangzhou should accelerate the integration of blockchain and innovation-driven development strategy, and remove industrial barriers by taking the technical advantages of blockchain to construct new ecological system of blockchain innovation of "technology core + industry circle".

It is understood that blockchain technology is an important representative of the new generation of information technology and its cross-border and fusion characteristics are particularly obvious, for example, blockchain and industrial Internet information management project, blockchain and new generation of electronic information technology, blockchain and intelligent manufacturing, blockchain and intellectual Property project as well as blockchain and food safety.

"Guangzhou is likely to become a nationwide new flashpoint in China’s blockchain industry, " Deng Di, the chairman of the China Blockchain Application Research Center, said, "based on the construction of the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area, the talent advantage and scientific research strength of Guangzhou as well as the industrial foundation of the Pearl River Delta provide the condition for the technical application ".

Nowadays, Guangzhou is speeding up the implementation of the IAB (a new generation of information technology, artificial intelligence, biological medicine) industry plan. These key layout industries have opened up a good space and development direction for the application scenes of blockchain technology. At the same time, Guangzhou develops resources based on the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area and clears the barriers in the whole industry chain with the use of the technical features of the blockchain.

The reporter learned that the association will focus on IAB and its extension industry. Instead of the six industries, it will give priority to the development of blockchain technology, including blockchain + financial services, blockchain + social management, blockchain + medical health, blockchain + things networking, blockchain + supply chain management (logistics, traceability), blockchain + intellectual property (cultural creation, original certification)

In addition, the association will assist in the planning and design of 10 major pilot scenarios, and gradually set up the application system of this technology.

The Guangzhou Research Institute of O-M-E Technology is the association’s secretariat. Ren Hao, the director of this institute, believed that the "blockchain +" industry application, blockchain + medical health, blockchain + supply chain management (logistics, traceability), blockchain + intellectual property (cultural originality, original certification) will be primarily developed in Guangzhou among the six areas of "blockchain+" application. For the GDD and Huangpu District, there will be great opportunities and conditions to make them become the pioneers of revolutionary technological and industrial reforms.

Zhang Chaoping, the deputy director of the GDD Administrative Committee, said, with profound industry foundation, GDD and Huangpu District are not only old industrial areas and science and technology innovation areas in Guangzhou, but also the main battlefield undertaking Guangzhou’s IAB industry plan, The new generation of information technology has become one of the three industrial clusters with annual revenue of a hundred billion RMB in the district and its output value accounts for 80% of the city’s total. In 2016, The total production value of the district was more than 300 billion yuan and industrial output accounted for 40% of the city’s total. Meanwhile, it also gathered 38,000 enterprises, established 21 national industrial bases and parks, and nurtured six innovative industrial clusters.

Taking the biomedical industry as an example, GDD and Huangpu District are the Top-one highland of Guangzhou biomedical industry. Guangzhou International Bio-Island, with an area of only 1.8 square kilometers, is home to nearly 150 projects, including Kingmed Diagnoistics and South China Biomedical Research Institute. Now, it is creating an international first-class pharmaceutical enterprise headquarter as well as advanced technology research and development base with precision medical treatment as the highlight.

Among those companies,Kingmed Diagnoistics is the largest third-party inspection institution in China and a member of this association. Moreover, its medical testing service network has covered more than 90% of the country's population and collected a large amount of sample data equivalent to 40 provincial large 3A hospitals.

"If these testing data are interconnected, and further to be developed and utilized, maybe one day the patient will not need to do repeated disease examination, and the patient's past medical information can be shared among different hospitals," Deng Di said.

Source： Invest Guangzhou, July 31， 2017