The Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) has launched a new blockchain-based platform which will digitize the shipping process and could track one-third of all shipping containers worldwide.
The GSBN was established in October 2020 by eight worldwide national freight maritime cargo businesses with the goal of developing a blockchain platform that digitizes shipping procedures such as document issuance, clearance, and logistics data.
Members of the Hong Kong-based nonprofit consortium GSBN are reported to “account for one out of every three containers handled in the world,” and once the platform is fully employed, this may soon be verifiable on the blockchain.
On Wednesday, the GSBN, in collaboration with Oracle, Microsoft Azure, AntChain, and Alibaba Cloud, announced the introduction of a new blockchain platform.
According to the statement, “as an independent consortium, it adopted a best-of-breed approach to technology to ensure the infrastructure is strong, stable, and highly scalable.”
The alliances were sought for for geostrategic reasons, according to GSBN, such as Oracle’s global trade operating system and Azure’s service reliability in Southeast Asia. In China, Ant Group and Alibaba Cloud will be used to deploy.
To secure GSBN’s information control, data will be encrypted before being uploaded to the blockchain platform, ensuring that members will not be able to view the data without authorization.
The group also stated that blockchain technology allows them to interact with “dissimilar and frequently competing market actors.”
In July, the GSBN released “Cargo Release,” its first blockchain-based application in China, with the goal of reducing processing time by eliminating paper and putting data on the blockchain.
CMA CGM and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, two of the world’s major container carriers, announced a full integration onto IBM and Maersk’s TradeLens blockchain platform at the same time the GSBN was formed in October of last year.
The competing platform provides supply-chain digitization services, and the TradeLens network now contains data from roughly half of the world’s maritime container shipping thanks to partnerships with CMA CGM and MSC.
