IBM is upping the ante on blockchain applications.
More than 1,500 of its employees are working on more than 500 blockchain projects spanning a variety of industries. The tech company is reportedly concentrating the most on financial sector, shipping and healthcare with regards to its blockchain offerings.
IBM’s app store LedgerConnect provides a platform of collaboration between financial tech companies and banks on blockchain technology to improve their daily back-end operations. Another of its offering, TradeLens (developed in collaboration with Maersk) is intended to streamline shipping by minimizing paperwork and documentation errors. More than 4,000 shipping containers are being tracked on the blockchain, and there’s expected to be more. IBM's Insurance Data Link allows insurance carriers to upload data directly onto a blockchain platform to show they're complying with state regulations – thereby reducing paperwork while potentially improving security.