IBM's (FWB: IBM) general manager of blockchain, Marie Wieck believes that governments need to put all of their services onto the distributed ledger, in order to accelerate the adoption of blockchain in business, the Australian Financial Review reported.
According to her, broader use of blockchain would bring about an estimated $3.1 trillion in benefit to the global economy by 2030, but conflicting policies in different countries risks derailing advances.
She said governments are going one of two ways, fully backing or shying away from blockchain and related cryptocurrencies with South Korea taking the firmest stance against development, and Dubai leading the world in adoption.
"There is no question that the level of blockchain activity in Dubai far exceeds just about every other place because it has made the mandate, from a government perspective, that in December of 2021 they won't be using any paper-based systems," Wieck told the Australian Financial Review on the sidelines of IBM's THINK conference in Las Vegas. "In order to do this, they are putting all documents on a blockchain," she added.
Wieck considers that all the corporations working with the government follow the Dubai government lead to invest in blockchain.
IBM has been at the forefront of enterprise-grade blockchain solutions. At THINK, IBM announced four new blockchain initiatives, including the beta launch of the IBM Blockchain Platform Starter Plan, aimed at giving start-ups and developers a way to build their own blockchain networks quickly and cheaply.
It also announced three new consulting services, ranging from advising on establishing pilots in 12 weeks, to combining blockchain with other technologies such as artificial intelligence.
By Siranush Ghazanchyan