Beijing Municipal Government Announces Blockchain Development Plan, Integrates Infrastructure

The Beijing municipal government has announced a two-year local blockchain development and implementation plan.

According to an April 29 announcement, the plan was jointly developed by the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, Zhongguancun Management Committee, Cyberspace Administration, Government Services and Data Bureau, Economic and Information Technology Bureau, and Commerce Bureau. Implementation is expected to begin this year and last until 2027.

The Beijing Blockchain Innovation and Application Development Action Plan considers blockchain as a "digital underlying core technology architecture and important infrastructure."

Beijing bets on blockchain to promote economic growth

The plan involves the development of blockchain software aimed at achieving breakthroughs in cryptography, confidential computing, and distributed systems. The project also includes the construction of blockchain infrastructure, including a national blockchain center node and a platform for trusted digital identities and distributed data directories.

The target industries for blockchain applications include healthcare, education, large-scale artificial intelligence models, financial services, and transportation. The goal is to improve efficiency and trust: promote business process optimization, trustworthy data sharing, and innovation in service models, and form a number of application benchmark cases with demonstration and leading roles, driving the application and promotion of blockchain technology in a wider range of fields.

One chain, one network, one platform

The announcement mentioned the principle of building "one chain, one network, and one platform." By 2027, the project aims to achieve dedicated blockchain chips, privacy protection features, cross-chain interoperability, and distributed networks.

The project hopes to achieve PB-level trusted node storage, large-scale blockchain interoperability, and an interoperable trusted identity system with a user scale of 100 million. The announcement promises to develop at least 20 blockchain application cases.

The announcement comes after Beijing released a white paper in May 2023 to promote innovation and boost the Web3 industry. The Beijing Internet 3.0 Innovation and Development White Paper (2023) sees Web3 technology as "an inevitable trend in the development of the future Internet industry."

The committee responsible for the white paper hopes to establish Beijing as an innovation center for the digital economy and plans to allocate at least 100 million yuan (about $14 million) annually until this year.