Alibaba’s Jack Ma: Blockchain is Meaningless without Disruption in Manufacturing, Society

Jack Ma, founder and CEO of Alibaba Group Holding, has said that the blockchain is meaningless if it can’t transform the manufacturing industry and society.

Alibaba Jack Ma Expects Blockchain to Create a Greener, More Inclusive Society

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, trading at the New York Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of more than $400 billion, has quickly become one of the leading blockchain developers in the world. The company filed 43 blockchain patents in 2017, amounting to 10 percent of all blockchain-related registered applications.

For that reason, Alibaba founder Ma has gained a status of leader in the blockchain industry whose comments are able to affect the markets. At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in China on Monday, Ma showed he maintains high hopes in distributed ledger technology, according to the China Money Network.

“The data age is major opportunity for manufacturers to reform the industry. But blockchain and IoT will be meaningless unless they can promote the transformation of the manufacturing industry and the evolution of the society towards a greener and more inclusive direction.”

At the second World Intelligence Congress held in Tianjing in May, Ma reminded everyone that Bitcoin is not part of the equation at Alibaba. He also said Bitcoin is a bubble.

“Alibaba has been working on blockchain for several years. Blockchain is not a bubble, but Bitcoin is a bubble. Bitcoin is just a tiny application of blockchain. Blockchain is not a huge gold mine […] At least inside Alibaba, blockchain must be a solution that addresses the privacy and security issues in the digital era.”

This is not the first time that Ma is publicly hopeful about blockchain and its disruptive capabilities to change the world for the better. As he launched the group’s blockchain remittance Ali Pay in June, he said “blockchain technology can help overcome the challenges of security, sustainability, and inclusion. It could change our world more than people can imagine.”

The Alibaba executive chairman said in June that the new generation of financial institutions, using blockchain, will service 80 percent of people and make 20 percent of profit, instead of what traditional financial institutions do, “serve 20 percent of people and make 80 percent of profits.”

Ma, who intends to step down as Alibaba executive chairman on September 10, 2019, is particularly concerned with the U.S.-China trade war, which he predicts could last 20 years: “It’s going to last long, it’s going to be a mess.”

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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by Ricardo Esteves on September 19, 2018 at 02:00AM