Huawei Unveils Hyperledger-Powered Blockchain Service Platform

Telecommunications and smartphone provider Huawei has become the latest tech giant in China to launch a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform.

Announced at Huawei's analyst conference in Shenzhen on Tuesday, the company's new platform, dubbed Blockchain Service, is said to enable companies to develop smart contracts on top of a distributed ledger network for several use-case scenarios.

A member of, and contributor to, the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Blockchain Consortium since October 2016, Huawei has based the new BaaS solution on Hyperledger Fabric 1.0, according to Hu Ruifeng, a Huawei engineer who also co-authored the project's white paper ahead of the launch.

As reported by CoinDesk, Hyperledger Fabric 1.0 version was first released in July of last year, and marked a key milestone for the open-source software as it progressed towards production-ready status for enterprise application development.

According to the white paper, the BaaS platform currently allows clients to build smart contract applications that focus on supply chain, tokenized securities assets and public services such as ID verification and financial auditing.

The launch marks the latest technological development from Huawei in its push into blockchain technology, and follows recent efforts by Hu and Huawei engineer Zhou Haojun to develop Project Caliper – software designed to test the performance of major blockchains.

Huawei's effort also comes as major internet and technology giants from China are moving into the space with Baidu and Tencent both having launched their own blockchain service platforms recently.

E-commerce giant JD.com also announced a similar plan in a white paper released last month.

Huawei image via Shutterstock