Xunlei's ThunderChain addresses trust, security challenges in internet era

China's government has shown great resolve in embracing blockchain, promoting the technology as a new frontier of innovation in industries such as finance, manufacturing and energy.

Following the government's determination, Nasdaq-listed digital services provider Xunlei is using its expertise in blockchain technology to inject new impetus to China's industrial upgrading.

In October, China's leadership announced more efforts should be made to quicken the development of blockchain technology, highlighting its important role in new rounds of technological innovation and industrial transformation.

The remark fueled a significant surge in the stocks of related companies and reinforced blockchain as a key buzzword in China.

In November, a number of government policies were released in support of blockchain as well as 57 new blockchain application projects. Among them, most apply to e-governance and finance sectors, according to information platform Interchain Pulse, based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

"Blockchain creates a permanent, unchangeable and transparent record of exchanges to keep track of every piece of information. It can bring order, trust and cryptography rules to the internet world," said Chen Lei, CEO of Xunlei and its subsidiary Shenzhen Onething Technologies.

Achievements

Xunlei has invested in the potential of blockchain technology since 2016 to address challenges in areas such as finance, e-governance and law. ThunderChain, a high-performance blockchain platform developed by Onething Technologies and rolled out in April 2018, is capable of concurrently conducting 1 million transactions per second.

Based on Xunlei's independently developed proprietary homogeneous multi-chain framework, ThunderChain is capable of realizing confirmation and interaction among homogeneous chains and enables multiple transactions to be executed on different chains in parallel, according to the company.

Xunlei has made great strides in promoting the application of ThunderChain. As part of its efforts, it developed a traceable privacy solution which allows multi-level permissions to meet both privacy and traceability requirements and ensure both data protection and regulation. The technology, introduced by Xunlei in July, has credible, decentralized network architecture; meanwhile, it encrypts and hides data by encryption algorithms such as ring signature and zero-knowledge proof to protect user privacy, according to Xunlei.

In addition, a cryptographic approach is used for risk mitigation at the maximum and protection of users' lawful rights to meet the needs of organizations or faculties with information control authority. A recent report discussing the application of the technology was compiled by the Chinese Association for Cryptologic Research, according to Xunlei.

Currently, Xunlei has introduced 16 products covering six industries of finance, social welfare, law, healthcare, e-governance and manufacturing over the year to serve different real-life scenarios, the company said.

"Blockchain technology should be adopted more in real-life scenarios rather than just being studied in laboratories, as the problems encountered during practical use can help improve blockchain technology and contribute toward new breakthroughs," Chen said.

ThunderChain was adopted by more than 100 enterprises and organizations and used in more than 50 projects in 2019. Xunlei's partners included the Copyright Protection Center of China, the Shenzhen Copyright Society, digital marketing service provider Hylink and Naresuan University Hospital in Thailand, the report said.

Real world application

In November, Xunlei provided technical support for Guangzhou Financial Blockchain Credit Platform.

According to Xunlei, records on the platform, collected from reliable organizations, are accurate, traceable, and resistant to modification, and break information asymmetry among businesses and financial organizations. The platform can help banks better manage bad debt risks and judge the solvency of a business efficiently and accurately. It will further help to solve problems such as financing difficulties for small and medium-sized enterprises and government agency supervision.

ThunderChain is also applicable in supporting data sharing and strengthening cooperation among government departments.

Xunlei has developed a Thunder-Chain-powered government service platform, through which users from different government departments can quickly access reliable and unified data. The platform reduces government working procedures, enhances government work efficiency and supports governments' missions of streamlining services for businesses and individuals, according to Xunlei.

ThunderChain is also helpful in collecting and storing electronic evidence.

According to the company, without blockchain technology, many problems exist in electronic evidence generation such as loss of evidence, forgery and falsification of evidence stored on hardware.

In dealing with these problems, Xunlei uses the ThunderChain File System, based on the company's proprietary distributed technology and millions of shared computing nodes, to ensure data storage security and authorized access.

ThunderChain is also used by foreign partners in the healthcare sector. In 2019, Xunlei won the contract for a Thailand academic institution to build blockchain infrastructure for its affiliated healthcare facilities. The system offers interconnection and traceability in addition to the protection of patient privacy, facilitating the implementation of a comprehensive health information system in Thailand.

Looking ahead, Xunlei plans to share its independently developed blockchain achievements with its peers and make ThunderChain an open-source system to support more applications of blockchain technologies in China.

"The movement will help create a more open and reliable blockchain ecosystem," Chen said. "It will also speed up China's progress in the development of core blockchain technologies and support development across a variety of sectors."