China’s Ministry of Education has approved the creation of the nation’s first blockchain undergraduate degree it has been revealed this week.

According to a Jinse report, the Ministry of Education just released its “Notice of the Ministry of Education on Announcing the Recording and Examination and Approval Results of Undergraduate Majors of General Colleges and Universities in 2019”. The report said that the Blockchain project will be added to the approved majors. 

The Chengdu University of Information Technology was the institution that had applied for the new course which will be titled “Chain Engineering”. 

The course according to reports will have a look at the basics of blockchain. Then implementation, design and project management are just a few of the other elements involved in the course. 

The creation of the course coincides with increasing acceptance and promotion of blockchain across China. Leader of the nation Xi Jinping approved the blockchain shift last year, saying it was an area the country should be exploring. 

Clearly, the nation has listened to the leader. The majority of the blockchain startups in the world are from China. Not only that but many provinces across the nation are also turning to blockchain. 

More recently, Shangdong Province announced that it will start the emergency construction of a number of provincial key laboratories, two involving blockchain. It is thought that the labs are being made with Coronavirus concerns in the background. 

In terms of universities and blockchain courses, the options for budding engineers are small. However, Chengdu’s course is not the only one on offer in the world. The University of Edinborough has a blockchain course. US universities like Stanford, the University of California and Berkeley have a cryptocurrency course too. 

The benefits of a blockchain engineering job are clear. According to Jerry Cuomo, IBM’s vice-president of blockchain technologies, the best blockchain engineers can command a salary above $250,000. 

“Demand is exceeding supply, so we are seeing shortages. It is up there with the cloud and artificial intelligence as a really hot area”, added Cuomo. 

Clearly the demand is there and now the next generation needs to fill those roles. Let’s hope that Chengdu can add more talented blockchain engineers to the industry.