While China has maintained a distasteful relationship with cryptocurrencies, the businesses settled there are increasingly enthusiastic about the underlying technology.
As per a recent survey by KPMG, an international professional services network and one of the Big Four accounting organizations, blockchain has emerged as the fifth most preferred technology among leading Chinese fintech firms, with a share of 33% as of 2022.
Blockchain technology ranked behind big data, which had a share of 76%, followed by artificial intelligence at 68%, while cloud computing was third, accounting for over 41%, followed by knowledge graph at fourth spot covering 34%.
Interestingly, blockchain technology ranked higher than 5G, robot processing automation, and virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR). The study revealed that 5G accounted for 10%, whereas robot processing automation and VR/AR accounted for 9% and 1%, respectively.
KPMG’s study also pointed out that the high adoption of blockchain technology comes from increased government backing. According to the study:
Blockchain is an important part of the ‘new infrastructure,’ and its core value lies in the realization of distributed trust, which can effectively solve the problem of information asymmetry between the two sides of transactions in the financial system, and its application prospect is very broad. As the country continues to promote the construction of blockchain infrastructure.
Interestingly, despite the ban on activities like cryptocurrency trading, the Chinese government has been supportive of the development of blockchain technology.
In this context, the Chinese authority has actively backed the sector through various initiatives, such as establishing blockchain pilot zones and launching a national blockchain standard.
In the context of AI leading the list, a recent report shows the country ranks top among regions embracing related products like the Text-based platform ChatGPT. Interestingly, the demand has come despite the country having yet to allow the tool officially. As of January 13, China recorded the highest popularity score of Google trends in interest in ChatGPT with a score of 100.
Earlier this month, a poll was conducted by over 600 business enterprise “decision makers” in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China. The extended figures revealed that nearly 90% of the businesses surveyed reported deploying blockchain technology in some capacity, whereas 87% opined that they plan to invest in the coming year.
Surprisingly, these results were particularly pronounced in China, where over half of the respondents plan to invest in blockchain this year.
However, Todayq News reported that during the “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session, Bill Gates answered queries regarding climate change, Web3, metaverse, and veganism. In that, he said that he doesn’t think Web3 is even that significant or that the metaverse alone was revolutionary; he does believe that AI is relatively revolutionary.