Vincent Y. Wang Executive President of Wanxiang Blockchain Talks about Distributed Cognitive Industrial Internet
During the Blockchain + RISC-V Forum organized by Wanxiang Blockchain at the RISC-V World Conference China on June 24, Vincent Y. Wang, Executive President of Wanxiang Blockchain, delivered a keynote speech on “Distributed Cognitive Industrial Internet”. The translated version of his full speech is featured below:
Today I would like to share with you how blockchain and RISC-V, the two fundamental open-source technologies can help build Chinese Trusted Embedded Architecture (TEA).
A brief introduction about myself: I am currently the executive president of Wanxiang Blockchain, but I spent a large part of my career in the chip industry. I spent four years working for Intel China Research Institute, and what I used to do during that period of time is highly related to what I am doing now.
We are witnessing a new era in which both technologies and business models are becoming more digitally driven instead of informationally driven. Although informatization and digitization are both related to data, the way information data is collected lays more emphasis on the centralized top-level design. Plus, since informatization software systems are relatively heavy, difficult to customize, and costly, the deployment process requires relatively high business processes and will thus bring more changes. Digital implementation, instead, is a flatter, more distributed business model which is lighter, credible data-based, and more data circulation, value exploration-focused. Now almost all industries are migrating from the centralized “informatization” to the relatively distributed “digitalization”.
What challenges, opportunities and changes have come with the digital migration?
The digital age will change the way we understand resource allocation, from simply a matter of updating information systems to truly tapping into data value. These data may be either stock data that are distributed in a number of data islands, or new ones to be sorted out which are collected through IoT facilities, digital cities, smart manufacturing, etc.
For example, medical research is shifting from chemical methods to biological methods, and cancer gene-targeted research is gradually turning to data-based analysis, prediction, and verification. Connecting the experimental data from scientific research institutions and the large amount of clinical data owned by medical institutions is thus critical to enable accurate and efficient gene targeting for cancer treatment.
The digital trend is also seen in the industrial field. Back in the information age, small and medium-sized enterprises could hardly benefit from the accumulation of industrial software. In the digital age when data matter most, SMEs are able to participate in and benefit from the industrial cooperation.
How to improve the performance of the Industrial Internet, address the following problems once data have been used by the platform, and create value for enterprises? These questions that have not been well answered in the information age can now be effectively addressed in the digital age when data circulation and value exploration matter, by integrating blockchain technology, privacy computing and knowledge graphs, while incorporating IoT facilities, 5G infrastructure, and artificial intelligence.
Take a quick look at the automobile industry. The auto industry is transforming from oil-fueled vehicles to new energy vehicles. This is not simply a change in the form of energy-driven; more importantly, it has brought changes in its own system architecture. Now, automobiles are more and more like highly digital electronic devices. In the past, buying a car used to be the same as buying an outdated mobile phone, which means and the software and hardware performance of the products has been solidified. Electric vehicles, just like smartphones, have operating systems on their hardware that enable function updates through application downloads. This has created possibilities to assetize facilities, servitize products, and financialize services.
We have reason to believe that this trend will occur in automobiles, home appliances, and urban infrastructure. In the concept of “digital factory”, for example, the factory that used to abound with heavy assets will be highly digital, service-oriented, easy to deploy, and quick in response.
And we also face many challenges in the process of digital transformation:
I. How to make sure that enterprises put their data on the platform at ease? The answer is to confirm data sovereignty, protect data privacy, and make sure the data itself is credible. In the process of data circulation, there are concerns of mutual distrust and information asymmetry between users and owners of data, and bridging the gap of trust and breaking data islands are the core value of blockchain.
II. How can enterprises and individuals benefit from trusted data and its smooth circulation on the platform? The key is to build incentive and governance mechanisms through distributed technologies, against multiple challenges of security, value exploration and business models.
The “Device Democracy” white paper released by IBM in 2015 stated that as of 2015, the lack of a good business model has always been a challenge facing the development of the Internet of Things. Digitalization empowered by blockchain will solve this challenge while creating a large number of business innovation opportunities.
Recently, data security issues have emerged one after another. It is reported that Colonial Pipeline Companies (CPC) pipeline operating system was shut down by hackers and extorted USD 4.3 million. Such data security issue, which the Western world used to believe would only occur in the Middle East, now seems to have grown into a global concern. Even worse, such an attack is simply a small test; if a hacker shuts down the power system to threaten the normal operation of the entire society, the consequences will be disastrous.
And not coincidentally, Solarwinds, a famous network security management software was implanted with malicious code at the end of last year, which has again made it clear that hacker attacks may not be completely prevented in the digital environment even if there are regulatory measures in place. Data security should thus be at the priority list for enterprises while determining their business environment and technical solutions.
IoT+ Blockchain is expected to help address the above challenges from the following aspects:
i. To build a trusted data source
With the help of the IoT devices backed by trusted chips, information can be directly collected from the production line inside the factory, which will then be managed on chain to ensure it is tamper-proof, thereby improving data credibility and the credibility of the conclusion execution in the industrial Internet of Things.
ii. To enable easier way of information on-chain
IoT devices such as modular and chip solution machines enhanced by blockchain capabilities help enable easier operations.
iii. Integration of security technologies
It is far from enough to simply integrate IoT and blockchain in terms of modules and standardized chips, and that’s why we are trying to explore new possibilities of RISC-V+ blockchain.
Years ago I was in charge of technology strategy at Intel Labs China (“the Labs”). In 2013, the Labs launched Edison and Curie, two well-acclaimed IoT solutions that had won four awards at CES. Unfortunately, we failed to apply those great ideas to real-world cases due to some decision-making issues. Still, the product prototypes are actually highly consistent with our vision today, namely to make very light and low-cost IoT pluggable modules inside which there is a small CPU which, with its computing power equivalent to that of Pentium, can run a relatively light Android kernel or a real-time operating system RTOS where users are able to download a variety of flexibly adapted APPs. With such modules, a Device Social Network can be built inside a physical device, so that IoT devices, regardless of its computing power or model, can build their own network and truly understands users’ habits.
To enable data sharing between devices with different computing power, we tried to build an ad hoc network upon which they can freely share data. We also roughed out a few incentive mechanisms such as exchange of points, rewards, etc., none of which actually worked, because IoT self-organization and data sharing could only be enabled in a decentralized way. It is blockchain capabilities that enable IoT devices ad hoc networks in which and small and micro value exchanges can be carried out.
Still, it is far from enough to simply integrate blockchain with IoT, because device and SDK layer are still prone to attacks. Therefore, blockchain + IoT cannot essentially ensure the credibility of data sources, nor can it guarantee the uniqueness of data sovereignty from the source.
That’s why we actively promote the integration and cooperation among different technologies and industries and make the best of RISC-V’s value in achieving equality, openness, transparency, security and protecting privacy. For one thing, we will work to make RISC-V more competitive so that it can stand out among the traditional chip architecture. Also, we need to explore more use cases enabled by RISC-V, such as networking between devices, connecting devices with different computing powers in the same chip architecture system, both of which are what chip companies have long aspired to.
RISC-V and blockchain are two fundamental open-source technologies to build a trusted and open-source system. I totally agree with what Dr. Sherwani, CTO of the RISC-V International has reiterated –the most open-source system is the most reliable system. And I am also excited to see that a few days ago Intel has released the first RISC-V chip jointly developed with SiFive. Hope RISC-V will thrive as other innovative fields that Intel has entered.
Moreover, building a blockchain & IoT-based trusted digital pedestal, data hub, and facility pedestal also requires the presence of knowledge graph, AI, privacy computing, 5G, and RISC-V. Blockchain is not simply a technical coordinator here; its value network helps enable easier integration of adjacent technologies and make business innovations more practical.
I won’t repeat here the value of blockchain technology in the digital age, which I believe everyone here has already understood. Smart contract is the key guarantee of ad hoc networks, while incentive and governance are being challenged. How to motivate and manage ad hoc networks? Blockchain-based network incentives and governance mechanisms will be the right answer.
We established RISC-V Blockchain Special Interest Group (SIG), the world’s first blockchain industry group in the chip industry at RISC-V International. In terms of infrastructure we have PlatONE, an independent, controllable, open-source, and privacy-protective consortium blockchain that will hopefully help ensure trusted data from the source.
5G is another infrastructure underway, which will vastly reduce the deployment cost of the Internet of Things. Meanwhile, the interaction between human and ad hoc networks and the emergence of 5G will create new opportunities and possibilities.
Today I’ve talked about the trusted digital pedestal and how to deal with what’s challenging the digital transformation, leveraging blockchain capabilities. The answer is to create a huge, interactive, distributed, and self-generated digital twin system by using blockchain and IoT.
More specifically, leveraging the digital twin system, we are aimed at creating the technical framework and the overall solution for the trusted digital pedestal, with the support of the PlatONE ecosystem and 5G deployment.
We are currently promoting the Distributed Cognitive Industrial Internet conducive to data security and data value exploration of the industrial internet, integrating blockchain, privacy computing, and knowledge graph.
In the field of digital cities, a blockchain & IoT-enabled trusted digital pedestal helps promote the credible data transfer and data transfer among residents (C-side), merchants (B-side), and urban governance (G-side), and set up an incentive mechanism conducive to the innovation and development of the urban digital economy.
Apart from industry and digital cities, we also remain focused on the financial services of biological assets. With “trusted” digital twin applied to the cattle, a dynamic and traceable type of physical asset is formed, where cattle can be digitized and tokenized to enable a more effective way of financial service delivery.
RISC-V Blockchain SIG the working group will be committed to standard setting, technological innovations, and ecological development. I hope we can work to formulate, hand in hand, a series of practical goals for this year and next, so that RISC-V, as an open-source architecture, will be widely acclaimed in the entire chip ecosystem.
We’re expecting all possible partnerships and support from you in terms of industry, asset digitization, digital city, etc. Thank you very much!
