DAML Smart Contract technology part of China’s Blockchain Network
Red Date Technology and Digital Asset have agreed to integrate DAML smart contract technology with China’s Blockchain Services Network (BSN). As a part of the agreement, DAML, the blockchain agnostic smart contract programming language created by Digital Asset, will be the exclusive standard for developing decentralized applications (dApps) built on the BSN. The companies will begin with a rapid pilot demonstrating the deployment of a DAML application interoperating across two ledgers – Hyperledger Fabric and WeBank’s FISCO BCOS – as well as integration into the core BSN architecture, targeted for completion by November 2020. Following the pilot, general availability for developers building with DAML on BSN is anticipated in 2021.
The BSN provides businesses deploying decentralized applications with a low cost deployment tool across multiple different protocols. Adding DAML will enable interoperability of applications regardless of the underlying blockchain technology used. Today, each blockchain platform has its own smart contract language and framework for building applications. This leads to applications that have to be written specifically for each protocol, and so are unable to interoperate. DAML and the BSN will allow developers to write their smart contracts once, deploy to their preferred platform, and interoperate with any other application on a BSN network.
BSN is a global infrastructure, backed by the State Information Center of China (SIC), to empower developers and companies to create next generation decentralized applications far more efficiently and accessible under one uniform standard. Red Date Technology, a Beijing-based software company, is one of the founding companies behind the BSN. Red Date initiated the project in 2018 and has been spearheading the network’s technical design. The other founding companies are China UnionPay and China Mobile.
DAML is an open source, state-of-the-art smart contract language and toolkit for building connected applications that span data silos and trust boundaries. It is the only smart contract technology to run seamlessly across many platforms. In addition to the upcoming work with BSN, DAML is integrated with VMware Blockchain, Corda, Hyperledger Fabric, Sawtooth and Besu, PostgreSQL, and Amazon’s QLDB and its cloud-native Aurora database. Earlier this year, WeBank announced its plans to integrate DAML with FISCO BCOS, one of the key blockchain platforms available within the BSN.
“BSN is the largest blockchain infrastructure initiative in China,” said Mr Zhiguang Shan, State Information Center and Chairman of the BSN Development Association. “Since its inception, our goal has been to break down blockchain silos and create an ecosystem that is open, interoperable and accessible to all. It is an exciting time for blockchain in China and we are pleased to bring Digital Asset’s DAML technology into the platform to drive our community forward.”
“We are excited to have Digital Asset supporting our mission for the BSN,” said Mrs Min Tan, China Mobile, and Secretary General of the BSN Development Association. “The BSN needs a unified smart contract programming language for our developer community and open source DAML smart contract technology is the perfect fit. We are impressed by DAML’s selection as the smart contract technology of choice by major global firms and industry associations, including Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Limited, Australian Securities Exchange, Singapore Exchange, The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, BNP Paribas, HSBC, UBS, Change Healthcare, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and many more.”
“The BSN is a transformative initiative that will shape the future of blockchain both within China and across the world,” said Mr Yu Zhou of China Union Pay. “We look forward to the success of our pilot with DAML and the production rollout, which will help us continue the rapid progress of the BSN.”
“We created the BSN to provide a cost-effective, one-stop-shop for developers to build and deploy distributed applications on a blockchain of their choice,” said Mr Yifan He, CEO of Red Date. “Today, each blockchain protocol has its own built-in smart contract language, but that makes it difficult for developers, who need to learn many different technologies to get started, and must rewrite their application entirely if they want to deploy to a different blockchain. By selecting DAML as the exclusive smart contract language of the BSN itself, our developers will gain the choice of using one unifying smart contract language seamlessly and interoperably across every blockchain.”
“We are looking forward to continuing our work to integrate DAML with FISCO BCOS as part of the BSN. We see great opportunity to reach a much broader developer community,” said Mr Ruibin Fan, Head of Blockchain Technology at WeBank.
“The integration of DAML with the BSN offers the opportunity for BSN developers to leverage Digital Asset’s existing catalog of smart contract applications to accelerate the deployment of new products and services for enterprises worldwide,” said Michael Sung, Chairman of CarbonBlue Innovations. “Currently, we are working with partners in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America to create low-cost, vertically-integrated solutions on top of the BSN using DAML. Our partnership with Digital Asset will help us expand our reach, empowering more organizations to embrace digital transformation, ultimately driving self-sufficiency and financial inclusion in these developing regions.”
“BSN’s vision is aligned with ours at Digital Asset,” said Yuval Rooz, Co-founder and CEO, Digital Asset. “There are multiple blockchain platforms available and more coming to market. The creation of a low cost and interoperable tool to unify these platforms is key to global adoption. BSN already has incredible traction with more than 130 nodes in production across China. By integrating with DAML, the BSN will have one unified language for applications and a cutting-edge interoperability protocol to further enable this vision.”
Since launching in April 2020, the BSN has quickly emerged as one of the largest and fastest growing enterprise blockchain ecosystems in the world. Designed as the backbone infrastructure of the Digital Silk Road, the BSN has already seen the deployment of more than 1,000 live blockchain applications in use across enterprises and government organizations in China. It has deployed 130 public city nodes connecting over 80 cities across mainland China and already has 15 public city nodes in countries around the world. By 2021, the BSN expects to have over 10 permissioned and 50 public blockchain protocols for developers to use at low cost on its network, spanning across the globe.
Given the scale of the deployment of the BSN by city governments and institutions throughout China, the global launch of the BSN also represents a pivotal catalyst for the global institutional adoption of blockchain.
