15 January,2018 Beijing—As blockchain fever is getting hotter in China, Chinese internet behemoth Baidu rides on this mania with a new product—-a Blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform.

According to Baidu Finance, this recently-unveiled open platform, known as Baidu Trust, has been in operation since July 21, 2017, and already supported over 50 billion yuan of assets. However, no major projects have been announced for this platform so far.

Based on the firm’s internal development, Baidu Trust sets out to provide “user-friendly” blockchain service. It’s suitable to multiple use cases, including payment and settlement, digital billing, bank credit management, insurance management ,financial auditing, and more.

Baidu claims that this blockchain-based cloud computing platform has been successfully applied to the tasks of asset securitization and asset exchanges. The firm has also contributed to the first asset-backed securities exchange products using blockchain technology in China.

China’s google has been tapping into the Blockchain World since 2015 and in June 2016, it showed its keen interest in blockchain startups by investing $60 million in Circle Internet Financial, a bitcoin-based payment solution provider.

Baidu’s ambition to expand its blockchain business shows no signs of shrinking. In May , 2017, Baidu Finance, in collaboration with Bai Qian Leasing and Huaneng Trust, released the first blockchain-based ABS product in China with 424 million yuan worth.

In October of the same year, Baidu Finance joined Hyperledger, an open source project under the Linux Foundation that counts IBM, American Express, Intel,JP Morgan Chase as premier members. In joining the blockchain consortium, Baidu hopes to create global blockchain standards with counterparts while fostering its own blockchain-based platform.

“We’re thrilled to be part of Hyperledger and look forward to working with other members to drive open blockchain solutions forward and to boost setting up of global blockchain standards. ” Baidu vice president Zhang Xuyang said.

Baidu adds that it has carried out research into blockchain technology’s utility in the areas of unmanned vehicles, AI, IoT, and distributed computing, among others.

In fact, Baidu is not the only Chinese tech giant to build BaaS platform. Tencent, another Chinese internet conglomerate, has likewise been developing a BaaS platform, called TrustSQL. This product, expected to be launched in 2018, aims to provide all the tools necessary for developing blockchain applications for businesses.

Despite Chinese authorities seek to put a lid on the speculative boom in cryptocurrency as well as the “blockchain stocks”hype, an increasing number of Chinese companies—ranging from leading internet firms(Baidu, Tencent, for example)to social platforms(Renren, Tianya, for example)— publicly link their businesses with blockchain to capitalize on investors’ enthusiasm for this promising technology that underpins bitcoin and other digital currency.

There is a growing concern in China that this unchecked blockchain mania could be a threat to the current financial system stability.