IBM-Maersk Shipping Blockchain Gains Steam With 15 Carriers Now on Board

IBM has recruited two more major shipping carriers to join the blockchain platform it co-owns with container giant Maersk.

Announced Tuesday, Hapag-Lloyd and Singapore-based Ocean Network Express - the world's fifth and sixth largest carriers respectively - are the latest ocean carriers to join the TradeLens blockchain.

They follow top-five carriers CMA CGM and MSC, which joined TradeLens last month.

Aside from Maersk and its subsidiary Hamburg Süd, TradeLens was launched in early 2018 with just one other shipping carrier, Asia's Pacific International Lines, 17th in the world based on cargo volumes.

TradeLens now boasts 15 ocean carrier lines, including ZIM, KMTC, Safmarine, Sealand, Seaboard Marine, Namsung, Boluda and APL. Todd Scott, vice president of supply chain solution sales at IBM Blockchain, said a lot of work had gone into getting the governance right, ensuring data privacy, publishing APIs, and aligning with common standards, known to the shipping and supply chain industry.

"The ownership has not changed. TradeLens is still a jointly-owned product, asset, IP etc between IBM and Maersk. That has not changed at all."

"Concerning TradeLens, we were not happy with the initial governance model proposed by IBM and Maersk. In the meantime, they have changed their approach and made it acceptable for us to participate in the platform."

He said players in the shipping and logistics world may have kicked the tires of other proposed solutions and seen that IBM's Blockchain Platform offered the best results.

"There were some other projects that I think that some of the carriers had engaged in that may not have produced the same kind of results. So I think that may have played a role as well," said Scott.

An obvious example of this could be the shipping blockchain pilot run by Accenture, which included Singapore-based shipping carrier APL and freight forwarding giant Kuehne + Nagel.