Blockchain technology has steadily moved into the mainstream in recent years as companies across government, transportation, logistics, finance, and healthcare embrace the technology for a wide range of uses.
Across these sectors, blockchain technology has helped enhance trust and integrity in systems that manage large amounts of personal and financial data. It has also become an essential tool for tracking goods. According to Gartner’s Hype Cycle, many elements of blockchain are beginning to move out of the “trough of disillusionment” and toward the “slope of enlightenment” as adoption expands.
Its trajectory is now being accelerated thanks to artificial intelligence, which has dominated global technology discussions over the past two years. AI has become a requirement in many ICT environments, either through integration with existing technologies or as part of infrastructure that improves processes, stimulates service innovation, and generates operational insights.
Convergence and synergy
The increasing intersection between blockchain and artificial intelligence is now reshaping both technologies. While AI is enhancing existing blockchain applications, many AI tools are also starting to rely on blockchain.
The power of AI to identify patterns and make predictions complements blockchain’s transparency, security, and decentralized structure. Artificial intelligence can help blockchain systems analyze large data sets to produce insights and support decision-making. Meanwhile, blockchain’s immutable structure can help address AI challenges around data bias and security. Securing the data used to train AI models can support fairness and transparency and allow auditing in critical sectors such as healthcare and finance.
Blockchain technology can also facilitate the sharing of anonymized data across organizations, such as in credit ratings, where privacy protection is essential.
Innovation opportunities
Artificial intelligence is already developing many blockchain applications. Smart contract automation is emerging across real estate, insurance, finance and supply chains, helping to speed up processes and ensure contracts are accurately adjusted when variables change, such as fuel costs.
AI is also enhancing data sharing across blockchain systems in supply chains, healthcare networks, and financial services. In finance, decentralized applications are becoming more popular, allowing data sharing and back-end systems that reduce the need for intermediaries, lower costs, and improve efficiency.
AI helps improve cybersecurity in blockchain environments by identifying patterns, analyzing system activity, and detecting threats early.
Asset tokenization is another area gaining momentum. Financial instruments, intellectual property, art, real estate and commodities are increasingly being digitalized to verify ownership through tamper-resistant records.
Obstacles and challenges
AI and blockchain technology share a number of challenges that will need to be reconsidered as convergence deepens. AI adoption is slow in Africa due to limited computing power and data availability. Both technologies face shortages of skilled workers, evolving regulation, data management concerns, and infrastructure issues such as electricity reliability and grid coverage.
Regional spread raises political challenges, including the need for harmonized rules on cross-border payments and contracts. While continental guidelines for AI emanate from individual countries, regional economic communities, and the African Union, a unified approach to both technologies is still a work in progress.
Sector-specific policies may be necessary, particularly in healthcare and finance, which contain extensive personal and financial data.
Expectations
As artificial intelligence and blockchain technology continue to evolve, additional technologies will likely converge with them. These include the Internet of Things, especially for supply chains, agriculture and healthcare, where connected devices collect and share data.
Digital identities and identity management systems are expected to expand as artificial intelligence and blockchain help improve privacy and data protection. This growth will support new digital services, including payments and e-government.
New machine learning approaches may also emerge, using blockchain technology to ensure complete and highly integrated data sets and support the auditing of predictions and resulting information.
Electronic payments across individuals, businesses and governments will benefit from the combined strengths of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, further enhancing financial and digital inclusion. Cross-border payments may become faster and more reliable, boosting regional trade and financial ecosystems.
To manage costs, some companies may turn to open source options for both technologies.
