American data storage company Seagate Technologies is all set to launch a blockchain project to fight counterfeit hard disk drives. The California-based company has partnered with tech giant IBM on the project.

The project will instill confidence in the customers regarding the authenticity of the product they receive. Moreover, it will work for Seagate technologies, tracking products back in the case of a product return. This will make sure that the clients don’t mock the company’s return policies by returning products that are different from the ones they saw. In the pilot, IBM shall be the sole customer for the hard drives. It will be the technology provider, with the platform being built on the Linux Foundation-hosted Hyperledger Fabric. It aims to bring in other large players into the system in due time. As per our source, most of Seagate’s revenue is from large corporations, so they will be the sole focus of the platform initially. The retail clients will continue using the brand protect ID solution already in place. In the future, Seagate might incorporate this solution on the blockchain system.

Adding blockchain to the mix would bring aspects such as greater trust and speed to the marketplace. Regarding Seagate’s preliminary work with IBM so far, the company is “involving the cryptographic identity of the device in the blockchain transaction, such that the digital trust of the product itself is part of the transaction.