Haier, who took the initiative to break himself, used the "blockchain + Internet of Things" to catch the intelligent age train

Last year, I saw an article from Jiang Yuxiang, a Ph.D. in sociology at Peking University. The title is “The blockchain era, please pay attention to Haier”. This article highly praises Haier CEO Zhang Ruimin’s reform of Haier and said that “Haier will It is the greatest company in the blockchain era."

This made me have a great interest in Haier. You know, Haier has not released the blockchain white paper, nor has it publicly preached any strategy about the blockchain. Is it exaggerated to hold it to such a high position?

In fact, Haier has long practiced the transformation of platform-based enterprises and encouraged employees to start their own businesses. Zhang Ruimin proposed “one person in one” in 2005. “People” refers to “employees” and “single” refers to “users”, meaning that when employees create value for users, they can get value sharing, which coincides with the ideas advocated by the blockchain.

Recently, Babbitt interviewed Zhang Hao , CEO of Haichuang Chain . He told Babbitt that Haier Group is mainly engaged in two parts of the blockchain research. The first is the IT department of Haier Group, which is responsible for the underlying technology research and development. The second is the Haichuang Chain, which is responsible for providing application solutions for the ecological chain. The Haichuang Chain is the company that is internally hatched by Haier Group.

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Zhang Wei introduced: "We have several blocks that will use blockchains. One is the food network, which is dominated by Haier refrigerators, and the other is the clothing network, which is dominated by Haier washing machines. These two have already started. The third is blood. Networking, blood stations in the process of transporting blood, may use Haier medical freezer, we will add traceability applications."

Next, we will use the "food network" and "clothing network" as examples to introduce Haier's application of blockchain technology in detail.

Food Network – Agricultural Product Traceability System

The food network is dominated by Haier refrigerators. The future refrigerators must be intelligent. There will be many sensors, cameras, and screens for human-machine dialogue. Therefore, Haier believes that the refrigerator can be used as a sales terminal and interactive terminal of the food network.

On the basis of the COSMOPlat agricultural internet of things ecological platform, the agricultural product traceability ecosystem is linked through the blockchain, which constitutes a complete information chain of agricultural products from the aspects of planting management, processing, logistics distribution, sales and data analysis.

In the agricultural product planting management link, the original information of the planting area is collected through the Internet of Things, and the crop planting information is stored in the chain; in the processing of agricultural products, the information of the agricultural product packaging process is stored, and the information of the agricultural product certificate is linked; in the process of logistics and distribution, the process of agricultural product transportation It can be traced in real time; in the consumer terminal, each product has a code, and the origin and qualified information of each product have a source.

Zhang Wei told Babbitt that Haier applied blockchain technology to the food network and divided it into three phases:

“The first stage is the traceability of the ingredients, which we have already started, is the part described above.

The second stage is whether each food producer can allocate value based on blockchain technology. In the future, the refrigerator may become a sales terminal or a user interaction terminal. Many people's buying behavior is not necessarily based on Internet e-commerce, but directly through their home refrigerator. We are wondering if it is possible to get through the customers of different food manufacturers, and to obtain some income distribution in the process of recommending customers to each other, so that the B-side is more integrated and the ecology is more prosperous.

The third stage is the protection of C-side user data, the user interaction with the device or the transaction data. We hope to encrypt and confirm it with the blockchain technology, so that the user data really becomes his own, instead of the Internet like the present. Enterprises, taking our data to cash out, users do not get any benefit. ” In Haier's vision, the biggest advantage of the food network compared with traditional traceability is the true closed loop of the food industry chain. As a terminal, Haier Smart Refrigerator can completely control the life cycle of food in the family. The blockchain brings value to the food web in three ways:

1. B-end traceability chain data: Activate the sleep value of big data in agriculture and livestock industry, and bring a new type of data collaboration model, which can realize the expansion of ecological alliance members with near zero trust cost, because everyone can trust the blockchain.

2. Promote the whole process of refined ingredients: The blockchain re-normalizes the whole process, and integrates the LOT system to bring more rich portraits of food, which will push back the reform and evolution of the livestock industry.

3. C-side value-added: Produce rich behavioral data through the refrigerator center, involving key portraits of users such as health, food, and habits, so as to make more accurate food recommendations and bring ecological income. Data value transactions can also be generated based on blockchain-based digital asset functions under user authorization.

It is worth noting that the "Food Network Series Standards" reported by Haier Food Network to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has passed the project review in October last year and entered the substantive standard proposal formulation stage. Zhang Wei said that the development of standards will take about three years, but after adoption, it will be an internationally recognized standard.

Internet of Things – Value-Added Sharing System

The clothing network is dominated by Haier's washing machine. Based on the person's single-in-one + blockchain, the pay-for-user model of everyone's makers is built.

“Our clothing has a washing standard and it will indicate its composition. In fact, our washing machine also has an intelligent structure. When you throw your clothes inside, you can immediately identify the texture of the clothes and how many times it has been washed. What kind of laundry detergent is recommended, how much is used. These scenes should be protected and encrypted.

At the same time, you can get through the ecological sales. For example, users of Haier washing machines may also be users of clothing. Can users get some points when they buy a washing machine, use this point to buy some brand of clothes to discount or get some users' rights, this economic incentive model will also think of using blockchain to achieve. Zhang Wei introduced it. On April 1st, at the site of the Hannover Messe in Germany in 2019, COSMOPlat released a clothing traceability system based on blockchain technology. The clothing traceability system allows each garment to have its own “ID card” and combines the RFID tag and the QR code label into one, and uniquely binds to the garment:

On the one hand, users can obtain product information in real time, including raw material traceability, craftsmanship, design, etc., so that users can wear peace of mind.

On the other hand, this ID card can also become the “business card” of the clothing brand, showing the user the entire process of design, production and sales behind each garment, and endorsing the authentic brand of the clothing enterprise.

COSMOPlat: Blockchain Empowerment Industrial Internet

In the above case, we mentioned a system, namely COSMOPlat, which is an industrial Internet platform built by Haier under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Haier believes that there are four major points of integration between the blockchain and the industrial Internet:

First, in the identity of the object: In the industrial Internet, there are many IOT terminal devices, and the blockchain can be used to solve the credibility of these devices.

The second is in data security interoperability: decentralized distributed storage security costs are low, while ensuring industrial data security, but also can effectively solve the problem of data silos.

The third is the management of production links. At the industrial production nodes, the application of blockchain technology for quality control and traceability, including transaction flow and logistics, is very reliable.

Fourth, industrial process efficiency: blockchain distributed system, a credible and secure technology, can improve the production efficiency of the supply chain system and improve synergy efficiency.

Blockchain + IoT brings future imagination

In the interview, in addition to introducing the blockchain application that Haier has already started, Zhang Wei and us have imagined the intelligent era of the future of all things connected. He said that the Internet of Things + blockchain can solve the last mile problem.

In the future, all the things that our eyes can see are intelligent hardware devices, including refrigerators, TVs, washing machines, and water heaters. So how do these intelligent hardware devices manage? How to store? How to interact? Still using the current network architecture?

"First of all, the communication between people is peer-to-peer. The communication of hardware devices should also be peer-to-peer. For example, your car and air conditioner interact. When your car enters the community, the air conditioner will automatically turn on.

Secondly, these hardware devices come with their own storage. The memory of the refrigerator and washing machine in the home is definitely surplus. It is very wasteful when you are not using it. You can use them for storage and calculation, which is now called edge calculation. Higher than a centralized computing center.

Finally, these hardware devices are likely to run on a distributed network without relying on the current Internet TCP/IP protocol. The blockchain itself is an underlying architecture and is a network protocol. By then, the application runs on the blockchain, just like the current DAPP, and there is no intersection with the Internet. ” When will this day come, Zhang Wei will not dare to draw conclusions, but he pointed out that there are three key points to promote the landing of the blockchain. First, you have built an ecology. Can you let the enterprises in the ecology gain value? It is better; the second is how to make the cooperation between ecological enterprises more attractive, which is very important; the third is to do this, the resource integration ability is particularly strong, the average small business will be more difficult.

Based on this judgment, Zhang Wei believes that most of the original enterprises in the blockchain industry are start-ups, and the technology may be very powerful, but the ability to integrate resources is relatively lacking. On the other hand, many companies with integration capabilities are not willing to take the lead. . Haier just has such a mechanism to let employees set up startups to practice.

Haier is already a giant in the traditional field. I am very curious. Does it really mean to be decentralized? Zhang Wei responded: "Our personal creator is a kind of decentralization. I have made a sea-building chain. Haier Group has given me great support in terms of resources and capital. Haier is not the kind of Internet company. It still has a sense of social responsibility and will not do the flow control. It is more willing to make the platform bigger and everyone will make money together."

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