Dive Brief:

• Swedish telecom company Ericsson is using blockchain technology to ensure data integrity and to to help serve as a foundation for its growing cloud presence, according to a CoinDesk report.
• The company has had its blockchain-based system running since January, according to Erik Forsgren, the company’s director for portfolio management.
• "We are not storing customer information in our blocks. We are storing a fingerprint of that data, which is mathematically linked to the previous hashes in the hash tree," Martin Frojd, Ericsson's head of product for cloud and data platforms, told CoinDesk. “We see that as a huge benefit, especially in industrial uses, because it has the speed and it has the value of it, and you’re not exposing any customer data in the ledger.”

Dive Insight:

This is not your bitcoin's blockchain. In Ericsson’s case, the tech is used as a way to back up the integrity of critical information used by its clients. It helps guarantee that information has a timestamp and recorded whenever any change happens, ensuring data can be trusted in real time.​​

Blockchain technology is used for record-keeping in a growing number of industries, including education, banking and financial services.

Last month, IBM published a study that found commercial blockchain technology is picking up steam in the banking and financial industries, with 15% of banks and 14% of financial market institutions reporting that they plan to implement blockchain solutions in 2017. About 65% of banks say they expect to have blockchain solutions in production in the next three years.

Given blockchain’s unique ability to audit transmissions and movements through log data, there will likely be applications in numerous other industries soon.