We studied the blockchain aspirations of the top 100 Fortune 500 companies for 2017 and provided the results in a sortable table below.
No one is surprised to see enterprise blockchain projects favor supply chain management and financial service applications (especially payment processing); however, we discovered a surprising number of imaginative patent applications and a high degree of collaboration among competitors.
On May 8th, 2018 the United States government held a committee meeting to explore blockchain technology for improving supply chain management and combating counterfeit goods. Though government and industry interests may differ in some areas, everyone who gave testimony agreed on the need to develop common standards for blockchain technology.
The interoperability of developing technologies is often critical to the success of each technology as well as the businesses that invest in such technology.
Our research revealed an interest in developing standards for identity, the Internet of Things (IoT), data interchange, consensus algorithms, mobility standards, and more.
Some standards groups appear to be more invested in developing standards more quickly than other groups.
In a startling moment at Google I/O 2018, Google’s Sundar Pichai revealed a series of short conversations between Google Duplex, an AI powered human-sounding digital assistant, and a human employee. Duplex was able to make hair appointments and restaurant reservations.
The most impressive display of Duplex’s ability can be seen in the assistant’s attempt to make a reservation for four people.
Professional services firm Deloitte recently published an analysis of open source blockchain projects (see The Evolution of Blockchain Technology). It found only 8% of blockchain projects on Github survived the first year; however, the remaining projects represent an exciting area of opportunity, especially for the financial services industry.