China's Search Engine Giant Baidu Launches Blockchain Open Platform

The announcement follows Tencent's blockchain service launch in November 2017. Guo Rui, Tencent's vice president for payment platform and financial applications, said at a Chengdu forum that his team "independently developed a complete set of bottom-layer blockchain protocols and actively participated in the formulation of credible blockchain standards for China Institute of Information and Communications."

Alibaba and Ant Financial, its payment unit, pursue their own blockchain initiatives. Jack Ma, Alibaba's founder and chairman, told CNBC in December 2017 that Alibaba invests major resources into blockchain development. The company partnered with PwC in March 2017 to build a system for reducing food fraud through blockchain. Ant Financial launched Ant Love two years ago as a charity platform, letting donors support nonprofits and charitable organizations via Alipay. AliHealth, Alibaba's health division, partnered with Changzhou's municipal government to integrate blockchain into the city's hospital system, encrypting and protecting the transmission of medical data.

Baidu's push into blockchain builds on the company's earlier adoption of the technology. It began accepting bitcoin for Jiasule in October 2013. The company joined Hyperledger, an open source consortium focused on advancing cross-industry blockchain technologies, in October 2017.