Partnership seeks to solve metaverse supply chain and digital storage challenges
Staff Reports | Digital Free Press
The Partnership for Economic Innovation, a passionate collective of business and community leaders dedicated to accelerating Arizona’s economic opportunities, and the Arizona Blockchain Applied Research Center have been awarded $400,000 in funding by the Arizona Commerce Authority to research new applications in blockchain technology.
This funding will support the newest members of AZ BARC and their research projects, MetaXFashion and DASH, in addition to a data exchange project that utilizes commitments from existing members, according to a press release.
Blockchain, a decentralized distributed ledger technology that tracks ownership of digital assets, has grown in popularity for its practical applications in financial and creative industries, the release states.
Through AZ BARC, new industry partners MetaXFashion, DASH and university researchers at Arizona State University will collaborate to investigate supply chain technologies, according to Kathleen Lee, director of applied research at Partnership for Economic Innovation.
“Through the Arizona Blockchain Applied Research Center, we are aiming to place Arizona at the forefront of technological advancement and growing Arizona’s technical workforce,” she said in a prepared statement. “We thank the Arizona Legislature and Arizona Commerce Authority for providing these critical resources so that we may support leading blockchain researchers to further promote innovation and sustainability within Arizona’s economy.”
For MetaXFashion, AZ BARC will explore supply chain solutions for bridging the physical and virtual worlds, with the goal of creating a sustainable non-fungible token marketplace and minting ecosystem on the Algorand blockchain.
The AZ BARC team will enable the use of QR codes, Radio Frequency Identification, and Near Field Contact to transparently track activities in the fashion metaverse, the release states.
Representatives expect the DASH project to study how blockchain-based aggregate signature solutions could improve platform performance and efficiency. The study will also develop optimization techniques by surveying and analyzing performance of existing signatures.
The data exchange project will create a platform where “Internet of Things” or IoT system providers can create ad-hoc challenges for their IoT devices. End-users would be able to access and “solve” the challenges resulting in unique IoT data streams. These data streams would be offered on an open data marketplace.
Turns out, experts report existing IoT systems are becoming integrated in all segments of our day-to-day life, from our smartphones and wearables, over smart home/building systems to smart cities, IoT systems are handling various smart sensing and automation challenges.
“The MetaXFashion and DASH blockchain projects represent AZ BARC’s commitment to creating a pathway for innovative advancements that shape Arizona’s technological landscape,” said Dragan Boscovic, research director at AZ BARC. “We look forward to adding them to our portfolio of blockchain research projects.”
