12 October, 2018
Xunlei CEO shares insights on the future of blockchainOver 350 participants – including students, faculty members, and researchers from HKUST - attended an inspiring sharing on “The Future of Blockchain” delivered by Mr. Lei Chen, Chief Executive Officer of Xunlei Limited (Xunlei) and Onething Technologies. The session was organized by the HKUST Big Data Institute (BDI) on 12 October 2018, with a full house in attendance.
Blockchain, considered to be most significant technological innovation since the internet, is also one of the most debated and disruptive technologies nowadays. In recent years, more and more applications built on blockchain technology are available across different industries and scenarios like financial sectors, supply chain and entertainment.
Explaining with a number of business case examples, Mr. Chen shared with the audiences that blockchain will create an entirely new business model on the internet. He believed that a new generation of business will begin very soon. “Blockchain has the great potential in realizing sharing economy. There is an open ecosystem in the blockchain businesses. As the strength of blockchain application comes from participants, with more and more people participating in the ecosystem, the blockchain businesses will grow rapidly and become more competitive,” said Mr. Chen.
In addition, Mr. Chen said blockchain will further reduce individual’s barrier to entry for doing businesses. People do not need to rely on single platform anymore. Instead they are working and engaging directly with other individuals. Therefore, blockchain can greatly improve the profit distribution and sharing.
At the end of the sharing, Mr. Chen encouraged students and youngsters to explore the power of blockchain and work together to develop innovative technologies and applications, making contributions and bringing benefits to the industry.
Prior to joining Xunlei, Mr. Chen was the President of Tencent Cloud. He also worked at Google and Microsoft in the US focusing on cloud computing and big data research and development. Mr. Chen holds a Bachelor’s degree of science in computer science and technology from Tsinghua University in China, and a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin in the US.
Xunlei Limited (NASNAQ: XNET) was founded in 2003. It is a leading innovator in shared computing and blockchain technology. Onething Technologies, the cloud computing arm of Xunlei has launched ThuderChain Open Platform, a high-performance blockchain operating system that can process over one million transaction per second (TPS) and realize confirmation in seconds. ThunderChain creates one of the largest blockchain business ecosystems and can be applied in a spectrum of scenarios to empower the real economy. Xunlei provides a wide range of products and services across cloud acceleration, blockchain, cloud computing and digital entertainment to deliver an efficient, smart and safe internet experience for over 400 million users globally.