Smart Dubai and IBM just announced the launch of the Dubai Blockchain Platform – the first government endorsed blockchain platform as a service in the UAE.
The service, built locally in the UAE, is delivered through an IBM Cloud environment and will serve as a stepping stone for organizations not only in the UAE but also globally to help them in transitioning their blockchain testing and development into full-production. In addition, it will transform and digitize applicable government processes and citizen services.
But what else will the platform do? Here’s a list of some exciting things:
- It will help integrate digitized services and experiences run on on IBM Blockchain into citizens’ day-to-day lives.
- Organizations will benefit from keeping their data in-country and conduct transactions locally, which in turn will lower their operational costs.
- The platform will conform to the Information Security Regulation (ISR) standards issued by the Dubai Government.
- It will also be powered by IBM’s mainframe technology, LinuxONE, which is capable of running more than 6.2 billion web transactions per day.
Dr Aisha Bint Butti Bin Bishr, Director General of the Smart Dubai Office (SDO), commented on the launch saying: “Guided by the forward-thinking vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai, and the directives of HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and chairman of the Dubai Executive Council, Smart Dubai has been moving rapidly towards our main objective of transforming the emirate into a full-fledged smart city that tops global competitiveness and happiness indexes.”
Furthermore, Wesam Lootah, Chief Executive officer of the Smart Dubai Government Establishment (SDG) claims Blockchain is steadily moving towards being a multi-billion market by 2019, and as such, Smart Dubai has successfully embedded the technology in numerous services, such as the ‘Dubai Pay Blockchain Settlement and Reconciliation System’ – a system which eliminated friction from financial processes between government entities through automation and minimal human intervention.
“With the launch of the Dubai Blockchain Platform today, we will be one step closer to implementing Blockchain-powered services and experiences into citizens’ day-to-day lives,” Lootah says.