February 1, 2018

Blockchain lab receives $1.5 million grant for project research

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A Purdue Blockchain Lab project received a $1.5 million grant from an Australian company supporting blockchain research and technology development.

The lab is headed by Hong Wan, associate professor of industrial engineering. Wan also is heading the project, called “Blockchain Pioneer Research with Applications in IoT, AI and Big Data.”

The grant was given by CollinStar Capital Pty Ltd.

A blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a dynamic list of records, secured against tampering and revision.

The research lab is the first in the U.S. to study blockchains from an operations research perspective and to work on characterization and application of blockchains to various areas.

“This is a groundbreaking initiative because there are tremendous opportunities in blockchain technology, and research in this area has just begun,” Wan said.

The project hypothesizes that a blockchain establishes a system of creating a distributed consensus in the digital online world, allowing participating entities to know for certain that a digital event happened by creating an incorruptible record in a public ledger.

Wan is joined by Blockchain Lab co-director Dadi Xing as well as Vaneet Aggarwal and Mario Ventresca, both assistant professors of industrial engineering. Other researchers include Siyuan Liu, co-director of Blockchain Lab Business Intelligence and assistant professor in the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University; Jacob Cheng, co-director of Blockchain Business Development and a managing partner of CollinStar Capital Pty Ltd.; and Xiaowei Xu, associate professor at Rutgers University Business School.

The three-year project will include a paper on the challenges and opportunities in using blockchain for industrial engineering, constructing agent-based blockchain simulation models, proposing blockchain evaluation criteria, and exploring blockchain applications in various areas including Internet of Things and data management. 

Writer: Brian L. Huchel, 765-494-2084, bhuchel@purdue.edu 

Source: Hong Wan, 765-494-7523, hwan@purdue.edu

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