Microsoft Inc has pulled ahead of Alphabet Inc’s Google, International Business Machines Corp, and Amazon.com Inc in the race for supremacy in operating other companies’ blockchains.
Microsoft and R3, a consortium of 43 financial institutions, have formed a strategic partnership to accelerate the use of the blockchain technologies.
Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella announced the deal at the company’s Envision conference on Monday.
Blockchains — basically online ledgers for recording transactions — first gained popularity with the digital currency bitcoin. However, financial institutions are now also experimenting with them to run their businesses more efficiently.
The first commercial deployments of the blockchain could go live in about a year, R3 chief executive officer David Rutter said in an interview, adding that it would be “three to five years until significant commercial adoption.”
In preparation, providers of cloud-based services that can run blockchain software for other companies are already jockeying for an early lead.
However, Microsoft’s preferred vendor relationship with R3 could give it a leg up in winning business from banks.
Microsoft is to first provide its cloud services and tools to R3 labs worldwide. As R3 member companies — which include Barclays PLC, Credit Suisse Group AG, Wells Fargo Securities LLC and UBS Group AG — begin their blockchain deployments, Microsoft hopes to win their business, too.
“The R3 partnership will help us to see what technology actually works, what combination actually works,” Microsoft technology strategy director Marley Gray said in an interview. “It actually increases our focus here at our highest levels. We see it as a tremendous investment for Microsoft.”
Microsoft is dedicating a team of five people to the project, but “it could scale up to 50,” Gray said.
R3 would “have half our staff touch this project at one point or another,” Rutter said.
R3 has 52 employees and continues hiring lab and research staff.
Rivals such as IBM are not asleep at the wheel, either. IBM is a part of the Hyperledger Project, an effort to standardize the blockchain technology for various industries.
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