Microsoft and R3 partner to accelerate adoption of blockchain-inspired technologies

Tech giant Microsoft and Chatsworth client R3 today announced a strategic partnership that will accelerate the use of blockchain-inspired distributed and shared ledger technologies among R3 member banks and global financial markets, as reported by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

These technologies enable enterprises and business network participants to complete financial transactions with greater speed, security, cost-efficiency and transparency relative to solutions currently used.

As part of the partnership, R3 will use Microsoft Azure as a preferred cloud services provider in its R3 Lab and Research Centre, where distributed and shared ledger technologies are being developed and tested and use-cases carried out based on an extremely rigorous, empirical-evidence based process.

The Lab and Research Centre has quickly become the centre of gravity for use-case testing and evaluation of blockchain-inspired technologies, bringing together banks, non-banks, both established and start-up financial technology companies, trade associations and regulators.

R3 and consortium members will have access to Microsoft’s expanding ecosystem of Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) partners including Ethereum and ConsenSys, Ripple, Eris Industries, Coinprism, Factom, BitPay, Manifold Technology, AlphaPoint, IOTA, BlockApps STRATO, Tendermint LibraTax, and many others that will aid in the development, testing and deployment of distributed ledger applications in cloud, hybrid and local environments.