Microsoft to Host JPMorgan’s Quorum on its Azure Blockchain Service

Global corporate and investment banking leader JPMorgan and tech giant Microsoft have recently announced the formation of a strategic partnership that will revolve around the adoption of an enterprise blockchain. The partnership will make JPMorgan’s in-house private fork of Ethereum, Quorum, the first distributed ledger platform hosted on Microsoft Azure blockchain services.

Furthermore, it will help companies engaged in business with Microsoft and JPMorgan to build and scale blockchain networks in the cloud. The new Azure Blockchain Service, a blockchain-specific arm of Azure cloud platform was launched in May 2nd is now all set to welcome the Quorum as the inaugural blockchain. While Quorum is an enterprise-ready version of Ethereum blockchain for businesses which are in need of secure, reliable, and transformative blockchain solutions.

The partnership will enable Quorum to become full-fledged Ethereum-based blockchain platform and give Microsoft competitive edge against major competitors such as Amazon, which launched its own blockchain-specific Amazon Managed Blockchain service recently as well.

Relating to the four-year evolution of Quorum and the partnership with Microsoft Azure, Umar Farooq, global head of JPMorgan Blockchain, stated:

“We are delighted to partner alongside Microsoft as we continue to strengthen Quorum and expand capabilities and services on the platform. Azure will bring unique strengths to enterprise clients using Quorum.”

The partnership will further enable enterprise businesses associated with JPMorgan and Microsoft “to shift their focus from infrastructure management to application development, ultimately driving transformative business value,” as noted in the announcement.

The jointly developed platform enables their customers to grow their networks rapidly while deploying blockchain applications with ease that will bring down the transaction costs and enhance the built-in governance through Azure Blockchain Service.

Confirming the long-term partnership, the two companies said in their announcement that they will continue to work together and address the number of problems usually encountered by the independent software vendor and enable the developers to build and execute blockchain applications on Quorum in the Azure cloud.

Peggy Johnson, Microsoft’s executive vice president of Business Development, stated:

“As digital transformation extends beyond the walls of an individual organization, companies need solutions that enable them to securely share their business processes and data in order to drive imaginative new business models and reinvent industries. We’re thrilled to partner with a leader like J.P. Morgan to establish a foundation on which enterprises and partners can rapidly build and scale blockchain networks.”

For both companies, this deal appears to be a win-win deal.