China’s National Audit Office decided to break from traditionally centralized methods to audit the enormous troves of data it needs to sift through and turned its eyes towards blockchain technology.
“At present, audit data is managed using a centralized storage method, which is first collected by the accredited agencies to audit objects, then uploaded to the Audit Office Data Center, and then centrally managed by the [AODC]. The accredited agencies do not store the relevant data. Though this management model has a high level of data security and legitimacy, it also results in the infinite expansion of data center hardware and software equipment requirements. It will never be able to satisfy the endless cycle of data storage and management, resulting in more data center workload,” the organization wrote in a published memo.
According to this statement, the NAO is having trouble keeping its systems from throwing sparks all over the place because of the ever-growing demand for hardware storage. The process of storing government data for a country with over a billion people in one single location is making the agency desperate to find new ways of tackling the problem proactively.
The NAO’s proposal is a blockchain that would use several nodes cooperating through consensus algorithms to “generate and update data.” In its memo, the author considers that “it is necessary to carry out extensive, in-depth and rigorous argumentation studies” to determine the viability of such a solution from a legal and practical standpoint.
Although the government doesn’t have much love for cryptocurrencies, it’s very likely to take the NAO’s proposal seriously. China is a country that’s proud of the headway it’s been making in blockchain technology, with the central bank boasting 68 patents for solutions that work with it. If the NAO finishes decentralizing its data infrastructure, Chinese citizens can expect government audits to happen more swiftly.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
