IBM (NYSE:IBM) has announced two separate projects that aim to track supply chains for the metals industry using the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain platform.
One is designed to track cobalt traveling from a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo to a Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) plant, while the other seeks to monitor the shipping of metals from a mine in Mexico.
In the first project, a 1.5 ton batch of cobalt will leave the mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo next month, travel to get refined in China, then to a battery plant in Korea and end up in the U.S. at the Ford plant as a battery for an electric car. The trip, lasting about five months, will be recorded on the blockchain, IBM said.