A number of tech giants, banks, and blockchain startups have come together to launch the Trusted IoT Alliance, aiming to catalyze the development of a blockchain-enabled, trusted Internet of Things (IoT).

The consortium aims to bring companies together to develop and establish the standard for an open source blockchain protocol to support IoT technology in major industries worldwide. Founding members include Bosch, BNY Mellon, Cisco, Gemalto, U.S. Bank along with Bitse, Chronicled, ConsenSys, Ledger, Skuchain, Slock.it, HCM International of Foxconn Group, IOTA, Oaken Innovations, Qtum, Chain of Things, Big Chain DB.

The initiative aims to provide a platform to the members to work together to ‘advance IoT and blockchain' by leading pilots, publishing open source code, and coordinating standards and reference architecture. It will house intellectual property and open-source tools and standards that support trusted digital identities for IoT-connected products. This will enable enterprises to represent physical world "things" and "event logs" on a decentralized blockchain system.

According to the official release, the members have already published a common API to register 'things' to both Hyperledger and Enterprise Ethereum blockchain networks.

Furthermore, the alliance is “blockchain agnostic” and will support integration across any open source enterprise blockchain or distributed ledger technology platform that has potential to become a backend for widespread commercial and industrial adoption.

“The Alliance aims to foster interoperability and interworking across blockchain platforms, applications, and in doing so remove barriers to broad scale adoption of blockchain technology,” the release said.

Zaki Manian, a Co-Founder of Skuchain, has been appointed as the organization's executive director with current operating board member roles held by representatives of the other founding member companies: Bosch, Chronicled, Cisco, and Gemalto.

"A big part of realizing the potential of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies will be linking these secure virtual systems to secure physical IoT systems. The Alliance's vision is to support the creation of a secure, scalable, interoperable, and trusted IoT ecosystem and to become a key forum for enabling rapid development of mature IoT enabled blockchain use cases and specifications,” Manian said.

In addition, the Alliance plans to fund small grants to support open source development and is reviewing proposals from IoT and blockchain technologists.

Supply Chain Working Group

In conjunction with the launch of the initiative, Skuchain announced the establishment of the Trusted IoT Alliance Supply Chain Working Group, which will aim to establish the standards by which blockchain may serve as the security protocol for IoT devices in the supply chain context.

“The Supply Chain Working Group will allow Skuchain’s existing Smart IoT Contract effort to work with the wider Trusted IoT Alliance to foster the development of intellectual property and open-source tools and standards that support trusted digital identities for IoT-connected products. Specifically, the Supply Chain Working Group will lead pilots, publish open source code, and coordinate standards and reference architecture,” the announcement reads.

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