Google is slowly gearing up to penetrate the blockchain space. Distributed ledger technology provider Digital Asset announced it has struck a collaboration with the Big G that seeks to bring its “blockchain platform and developer tools” to the Google Cloud Platform.
Digital Asset has effectively created a development kit (to be rolled out at an as yet unknown point in the future) that furnishes cloud customers with the tools to build smart contracts, and test and deploy decentralized applications.
“We are delighted to innovate with Digital Asset in the distributed ledger space [DLT],” said Cloud Platform head of financial services, Leonard Law. “DLT has great potential to benefit customers not just in the financial services industry, but across many industries, and we’re excited to bring these developer tools to Google Cloud.”
The Mountain View giant is still somewhat of a challenger brand in the corporate cloud services game, trailing behind market leaders Amazon and Microsoft. With this in mind, it is no surprise the Alphabet subsidiary is seeking to innovate in the DLT industry, perhaps hedging on the recent uptake in blockchain tech.
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Microsoft already offers a suit of blockchain development tools through its cloud service Azure. Likewise, Amazon provides blockchain infrastructure solutions via AWS. It will be interesting to see what Google can add to the mix.
It is worth pointing out that despite labelling the cooperation as an effort in distributed ledger technology, the project will not deliver an entirely decentralized product. But this is not necessarily a bad thing.
Taking a more centralized approach ought to give Google more space to incorporate the benefits of blockchain tech – such as security and transparency – without necessarily sacrificing speed and scalability. This should also make it significantly easier for Cloud Platform users to design and deploy blockchain-powered solutions.
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