Michael Dell Believes Blockchain is Probably Underrated
Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell believes blockchain technology is probably underrated. He would not comment on whether he believes bitcoin is overrated or underrated during a recent interview with the New York Times' DealBook newsletter.
Dell recently named blockchain technology as a potential revenue driver for his company, along with AI-driven biotech. The technologies are being researched as part of Dell's infrastructure business, which brought in a whopping $8.4 billion in revenues in the second quarter of this year.
"Dell is the leading company in cloud and IT infrastructure," said Dell. "So if you think about blockchain, or, you know, autonomous vehicles, or AI-driven biotech, at the center of all these things, you know, at the center of you know the increasingly connected intelligent world is an enormous amount of data.
And all that data requires infrastructure and technology to manage it. And so we're the world's leading provider of all of that."
No stranger to blockchain, Dell began working with its subsidiary VMware in 2019 to use the technology to track and trace the company's recycled packaging material. The partnership was part of Dell's commitment to incorporating recycled plastics recovered from e-waste recyclers into new packaging material to reduce waste. Dell has a strong supply chain in southeast Asia, which accounts for 60 percent of total ocean plastic.
VMware's blockchain solutions are being used to track and trace the recycled plastic, ensuring it makes its way back into the supply chain. End users who purchase a Dell laptop may also view the provenance of the recycled material through the technology, including what type of plastic was used and where it was recovered from.
Dell is also using blockchain to prevent human trafficking in the plastic collection business. The technology verifies that the people collecting the plastic are being paid to do so and not forced into providing free labor.
VMware launched its own VMware Blockchain in 2020, with the goal of solving workflow and productivity problems to increase efficiency. The company identified complex and fragmented multi-party workflows that caused delays, increased costs and hindered workflows that it aims to tackle using the blockchain technology.
Edited by Luke Bellos
