You haven’t seen the biggest blockchain network yet, according to the richest man in Asia, Mukesh Ambani who plans to make this a reality.
Ambani is the chairman of Reliance Industries, a multinational company headquartered in Mumbai India. The company engages in, among other things, textiles, petrochemicals, energy, telecommunications, and natural resources.
Additionally, Reliance industries is among the most profitable firm and the largest publicly traded company in India. As of 2018, the company was ranked position 148 in the Fortune Global 500 list that features the largest corporations in the world. Ambani is ranked position 13 in the Forbes Rich List and is worth 52.4 billion US dollars.
Ambani wants world’s largest blockchain in 12 months
Now, the company’s chairman and Asia‘s richest man plans to venture into the blockchain space by building the world’s largest blockchain network in 12 months. During the company’s recent AGM (annual general meeting), the chairman announced that the blockchain network would be developed by Reliance Jio Infocomm, a mobile network firm in India owned by Reliance Industries.
According to Ambani:
“The network will have tens of thousands of nodes operational on day one. Using blockchain, we can deliver unprecedented security, trust, automation, and efficiency to almost any type of transaction. This is a vital capability for India, especially for modernizing our supply chains for agricultural produce and other goods which form the lifeblood of our economy.”
Additionally, Ambani praised blockchain for allowing users to control their data, consequently enhancing data privacy.
The chairman added:
“[Blockchain technology presents] an opportunity to invent a brand-new model for data privacy where Indian data, especially customer data, is owned and controlled through technology by the Indian people and not by corporates, especially global corporations.”
300 million users and a Microsoft partnership to catalyze digital transformation
Notably, the mobile network company has over 300 million users. Therefore, it’s the largest mobile network company in India and the third on a global scale. Additionally, the mobile network firm has a partnership with Microsoft to act as a catalyst for the Indian digital transformation phase. As part of the partnership, Reliance Jio and Microsoft are working towards the birth of a cloud data center.
The data center is aimed at assisting organizations to “use tools and platforms to build digital capabilities.”
Interestingly, this is not the first time Reliance Industries is turning to blockchain for solutions. Towards the end of last year, the company employed blockchain technology to partner with Brussels Bank and HSBC India. The partnership helped to facilitate the first trade financing transaction.
Is India ditching crypto for its technology?
Surprisingly, Ambani’s announcement comes at a time when India is debating whether to impose a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies. A draft bill by an inter-ministerial committee suggested that the Indian government should criminalize crypto activities. Also, the committee suggested a 10-year jail term for defaulters. However, the bill will be tabled in parliament during the winter session.Unfortunately, according to experts, if parliament upholds the ban request, the Indian economy will lose approximately 13 billion US dollars generated by services such as white paper writing. Additionally, the country will lose revenue generated by cryptocurrency exchanges.
