TradeLens, a blockchain-based supply chain platform co-developed by the American technology giant IBM and the Danish logistics business Maersk, will no longer be supported and will officially go offline in Q1 2023.
On November 29, Maersk said that it has started taking urgent steps to stop using the platform, which should fully take effect by the first quarter of 2023:
“The TradeLens team is taking action to withdraw the offerings and discontinue the platform […] During this process all parties involved will ensure that customers are attended to without disruptions to their businesses.”
Although the two companies unveiled the blockchain-based shipping solution in August 2018 to assist industry players to adopt more effective global supply chain methods, Maersk said the platform hadn’t yet attained a level of “commercial viability” to support operations:
“While we successfully created a workable platform, comprehensive industry cooperation on a worldwide scale has not been realized, “Rotem Hershko, director of business platforms at Maersk, remarked. “TradeLens has not yet achieved the degree of economic viability required to go on and fulfill the financial obligations of a stand-alone company as a consequence.
In order to fulfill the goals envisioned by TradeLens, Maersk said that the company will keep working to digitize the supply chain and boost industry innovation via alternative solutions.
TradeLens worked by monitoring and processing each shipment’s crucial supply chain data in real-time, then marking a distributed and immutable record of events on-chain for access and validation by all parties involved.
Despite TradeLens falling short of IBM and Maersk’s initial expectations, the two businesses were nevertheless able to sign up over 150 businesses for the supply chain-focused blockchain, including several port owners, shipping firms, and logistics providers.
Two of the biggest container carriers in the world, CMA CGM, and Mediterranean Shipping Company were among those businesses. They integrated the system in October 2020.
TradeLens has been discontinued despite statistics from IBM claiming that the technology cut shipping times by 40% and customers’ documentation expenses by 20%.
Because it is immutable, blockchain technology, according to Statista, makes maintaining data records simpler, more transparent, and more safe.
Despite this, TradeLens’ slow acceptance shows that a number of obstacles still prevent the widespread adoption of blockchain in the supply chain sector. These problems include high transaction costs, privacy concerns, scalability problems, and a lack of industry cooperation.
