Alibaba looks at blockchain for complex supply chains

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is considering blockchain implementation for cross-border supply chains.

In an article published by China’s largest state-owned newspaper, People’s Daily, Alibaba Group VP, Liu Song, said that the company was looking at using the technology in complex supply chains to create a closed loop ecological system that could be linked with local governments.

So many patents

Last year, Alibaba nabbed the top spot, ahead of IBM, on an iPR Daily list that ranked global organisations by the number of blockchain-related patents they had filed.

The media outlet used data as of 10th August 2018 from across China, the EU, America, Japan and South Korea, and also consulted the International Patent System from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Alibaba filed 90 blockchain-related patent applications and IBM was close behind with 89. In third place was Mastercard (80) followed by Bank of America (53). Next up was People's Bank of China, which had filed a total of 44 patent applications around its central bank digital currency project.

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