Today, Geely Holding and the Concordium Foundation announced they have formalized a joint venture in Wuxi, China, targeting blockchain in the automotive and other business sectors. The objective is for Concordium to become a major blockchain technology service provider in China. Plans for the initiative were first announced more than a year ago.
Apart from its own auto brand, Geely also owns Volvo, Polestar, and Lotus and is the largest shareholder in Daimler. The two organizations have had a close relationship since the early days of Concordium. The blockchain startup’s CEO, Lone Fønss Schrøder, is deputy Chairman of Volvo.
“The in-depth cooperation between Geely Holding and Wuxi Economic Development District in the field of blockchain technologies will help accelerate the development of the blockchain industry in Wuxi,” said Daniel Donghui Li, CEO of Geely Holding Group. “The policy and resource support of Wuxi Economic Development District is also conducive to the rapid development of Geely Holding’s blockchain technology and business.”
While Concordium is a public permissionless blockchain, it has a built-in identity system that enables regulators to unmask identities potentially. As with most public blockchains, it has an associated cryptocurrency. Given the Chinese authorities like to see permissioned blockchains, we wondered whether a separate permissioned version might be used in China. We didn’t receive a response to our query at the time of publication.
Concordium says that together with Geely Digital Technology, a number of applications have already been developed. These include blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform, digital asset management, and blockchain traceability. And some have been applied to Geely’s brands.
Meanwhile, Volvo has previously been involved in blockchain projects, mainly for the traceability of ethically sourced minerals. Daimler has a broader range of blockchain initiatives. One of the most novel is a collaboration with Boerse Stuttgart to explore using public tokens to fund industrial machinery.
