Tech giant IBM has announced the launch of its new blockchain as a service platform. The new service – which is available on Bluemix, IBM’s cloud platform – empowers developers to create a variety of digital assets that can run on private blockchains.

“Blockchain applications can also be deployed on IBM z Systems, enabling an additional level of security, availability and performance for handling sensitive and regulated data.”

According to the press release, IBM’s Watson platform will also be able to interface with the new blockchain service, where data gathered from a variety of hardware devices will interact with blockchain applications:

“Using its Watson IoT Platform, IBM will make it possible for information from devices such as RFID-based locations, barcode-scan events, or device-reported data to be used with IBM’s Blockchain. Devices will be able to communicate to blockchain-based ledgers to update or validate smart contracts.”

IBM is also planning to open blockchain developer environments in London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo. The centers – which will be called “Garages” – will focus on exploring new blockchain designs and use cases of the technology.

Mika Lammi, who heads the Internet of Things (IoT) division at Kouvola Innovation, is very enthusiastic about the pairing of IBM’s Watson system with the new cloud blockchain developer suite, “The IBM Blockchain fabric, together with the Watson IoT platform, offers great potential to bring together the physical and digital worlds in a way that has never been done before.” said Lammi.

Part of the press release also focused on IBM’s recent contribution to the Hyperledger Project, which is being developed by the Linux Foundation. IBM is a founding member of the project and revealed that 44,000 lines of code were recently contributed.

“IBM’s code was developed through the collaboration of more than 35 global IBM Researchers”

Senior Vice President of IBM Research, Arvind Krishna, said that the new service will give developers an opportunity to actually start creating blockchain applications, and not just studying them:

“These advancements are making it easier for developers to move from understanding the potential of blockchain, to actually using it to change their business processes in powerful new ways.”

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