IBM opens New York garage for blockchain on the cloud developers
IBM has opened a new Bluemix Garage in New York, to offer the city’s developers, entrepreneurs, and fintech firms the use of blockchain on the cloud.
The garage will be located at Galvanize’s (a network of campuses) newly launched New York campus. IBM says this location in “this tech learning community for students, start-ups and established companies will deepen IBM’s roots in the city’s thriving tech scene”.
It says its Bluemix Garages let developers tap into its cloud APIs around blockchain, cognitive, internet of things (IoT), unstructured data, social media and more to build and launch innovations. IBM adds that Bluemix, its cloud platform, is on-boarding more than 20,000 developers each week.
Prashant Bhuyan, co-founder and CEO of investment tech firm Alpha Modus, says: “Using Bluemix, we’ve been able to roll out transformational apps that leverage cognitive analytics with unbelievable time and efficiency – helping to shake up the way our clients invest in the markets.”
IBM has other garages, such as in Tokyo, San Francisco, London, Toronto and Nice; and more are planned to open in the latter half of 2016.
Keep feeling fascination
The appeal of blockchain to fintech firms shows no sign of weakening.
Working with the newly opened IBM Garage in Tokyo, Mizuho Financial Group recently announced a test of the potential of blockchain for use in settlements with virtual currency.
By incorporating blockchain, Mizuho says it “will explore how payments can be instantaneously swapped, potentially leading to new financial services based on this rapidly evolving technology”.
Both companies are using the open source Linux Foundation Hyperledger Project for their blockchain networks.
