Amazon Web Services to Offer Blockchain as a Service with Startup Qtum
Qtum Foundation, a Singapore-based startup has announced an unprecedented partnership with Amazon Web Services to offer blockchain as a service (BaaS) for enterprise customers, beginning in China.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the worlds largest cloud providers aims to make smart contracts and dApps available for free through its partnership with Qtum, which has been listed on the AWS marketplace since July. Simon Wang, head of territory business development at AWS China stated:
“Qtum are now an AWS technology partner and one of the partner network members.”
Founded in 2016 as a global project, Qtum (pronounced Quantum), brought together an extensive team from both the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities, as well as companies like NASDAQ, Baidu and Alibaba to create a hybrid platform that merges aspects of bitcoin’s infrastructure with the Ethereum Virtual Machine through an Account Attraction Layer interface.
Using a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus model, Qtum aims to reduce the computational challenges and increase scalability throughout the platform, making it easier to build broad-based decentralised applications.
Initially, Qtum and AWS will work together to create the bases for enterprise-grade solutions, communicating directly with customers to establish the use cases most in demand, with guidance provided by Qtum wherever needed. Mike Palencia, Qtum’s chief information officer has said:
“Some clients have their own ideas and their own developers, and some of them want more support from us”
Utilising AMI (Amazon Machine Image) which features Qtum core, AWS intends to enable clients to develop and launch their own dApps and smart contracts providing “an easy-to-use and powerful cloud-based solution for end users and enterprise”.
Alongside the Qtum AMI, Solidity and Gmix web IDE will also be integrated for processing the new solution, enabling Amazon Web Services to offer blockchain to its customers quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively. A news release by Qtum states:
“As the platform grows and develops, AWS and QTUM will expand their service offerings to include features explicitly built for end users, developers, and enterprise customers,”
Qtum Co-founders, Jordan Earls and Patrick Dai explained that a ‘TestNet’ will be deployed for AWS customers to simulate a public blockchain and test their products free of charge, without having to purchase QTUM coins.
According Qtum’s announcement, it is the first free and open-source blockchain to join AWS, offering all the necessary development tools and libraries. With more than 5,000 nodes worldwide, the company has stated:
“complete and fully functional Qtum nodes can launch in just 2 minutes,”
Qtum confirmed that it has been in discussions about the partnership with AWS since April 2018. Just a month earlier, the blockchain startup enlisted the support and guidance of one of the world’s biggest professional services networks, PwC, that has itself been ramping up its in-house efforts by launching a blockchain course for its staff.
Similarly, back in July, the Google blockchain cloud service launched with startup companies BlockApps and Digital Asset to offer enterprise BaaS solutions.
