Input Output goes to uni for blockchain lab
The University of Edinburgh
Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), a blockchain architecture and development start-up, and the UK’s University of Edinburgh, have set up a blockchain technology laboratory within the university’s School of Informatics.
The lab will bring together academics and students to collaborate on blockchain research and development with a focus on “industry inspired problems”.
IOHK CEO and co-founder Charles Hoskinson says the partnership “will develop IOHK’s core business area, cryptocurrencies and blockchain related technologies, and nurture and develop the global talent in these areas in the UK”.
The research lab at the university will also serve as the headquarters for IOHK’s network of global university partnerships. Tokyo Institute of Technology launched a similar centre with IOHK on 15 February and IOHK expects to establish further research laboratories in the US and Greece later this year, and it has unspecified plans for more in 2018.
IOHK says research collaborations will be interdisciplinary and will include, beyond cryptography and computer science, economics, game theory, regulation and compliance, business and law. The lab will provide a direct connection between developers and researchers, helping to get projects “live faster and aims to pursue outreach projects with entrepreneurs in Edinburgh’s vibrant local technology community”.
As Banking Technology reported earlier this month, IOHK built a proof-of-stake protocol as it seeks to create a “better” Bitcoin, aka Bitcoin 2.0.
The protocol, called “Ouroboros”, is a consensus algorithm designed to be a foundation for blockchains that “improve” user governance, system maintenance, transaction processing speeds and blockchain scalability.
