Siemens Cre8Ventures announced a partnership with the Minima blockchain for its digital twin marketplace. Minima is a so-called embedded blockchain that supports a full node running on an IoT device. Cre8Ventures is the Electronic Design Automation division of the German giant.
Siemens sees blockchain as enabling security for the robotics, automotive, energy, and healthcare equipment industries.
The Cre8Ventures Digital Twin Marketplace sounds rather like an incubation initiative, although Siemens doesn’t describe it like that. It enables large companies in the mentioned industries to test and validate new technologies in a low risk manner. In addition to helping Minima to develop solutions to meet certain needs, it will also assist on the marketing front.
One of Minima’s highest profile use cases is for electric vehicle (EV) recharging points. It is creating a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) for private vehicle charging points, Volt. Homeowners host a wallbox charging point which EV drivers can access to recharge their cars. Access is enabled with Minima tokens. A mobile phone app allows people to find available charging points in the area. Minima describes it as the AirBNB for EV charging.
Siemens and blockchain
For Siemens the primary interest is in security. It wants to explore the ability of Minima to provide data authenticity, enabling cryptographic proofs to verify that the device’s data hasn’t been tampered with. Minima can help to secure inter-device communication, such as between electric vehicles and charging points or devices that are part of energy grids. Plus, it wants blockchain to ensure the integrity of components in devices. Each of these applications has already been achieved elsewhere using blockchain.
And Siemens should know, as it has extensive blockchain experience. It was one of the members of the Trusted IoT Alliance which aimed to secure IoT using blockchain, although it was disbanded some time back. Blockchain for IoT hasn’t always been the lowest hanging fruit for making money. Siemens also previously explored peer-to-peer energy trading using blockchain.
