The Ambrosus Ecosystem:

The Ambrosus Ecosystem is made up of three key components, each of which will continue evolving into the future: 1) the Innovation Laboratory — a center for research and development 2) AMB-NET — the Ambrosus enterprise solution, and 3) the Ambrosus Developer portal — the root of open-source development. All three of these components possess different levels of centralisation or decentralisation depending on the goals and needs of those involved.

The Innovation Laboratory: Research and Development

First, in the Ambrosus Ecosystem cutting edge innovation continuously evolves through the technical research and development of unique smart devices and containers at the Ambrosus Innovation Laboratory in Switzerland. Among a wide variety of products currently under construction, the InnoLab specializes in custom designing smart solutions for virtually any industrial supply chain. Such solutions range from eco-friendly tags, to smart containers, to artificial intelligence based gateways. Most importantly, such solutions have been specifically designed for complex food and pharmaceutical supply chains: a variety of different sensing systems may be employed depending on the needs of the client, and the product in question.

Led by Dr. Stefan Meyer and his Swiss-based team, the InnoLab presents — for the first time — the possibility of attaching high tech biosensors and other smart devices to food, commodities, and medicines, to ensure the quality assurance of such products in real-time throughout their journey on the supply chain. Never before has it been possible for a company to know about the real-time conditions of their products as they move across the globe. Additionally, as there is a potentially limitless number of products from various industries that could be monitored, the potential of the Innovation Laboratory is equally limitless. In the future, such sensors could be made to detect lead contamination of water, plastic microbes, or even the quality of air. The end goal of such research and innovation is to develop the necessary technical foundation for fully automatizing supply chains in the future: using machine learning, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things (IoT) the Ambrosus supply chain solution aspires to be holistic in its scope and applicability.

On the spectrum of centralisation and decentralisation, it only makes sense for the InnoLab to be centralised: cutting edge technology is being used to create completely new ways of monitoring certain products. Not only is this a massive competitive advantage in the supply chain space, but it also requires Dr. Stefan Meyer and his team to be able to deliver sensors that certain companies request in an efficient and timely manner, under a contract and NDA. The technology cluster in Switzerland also allows Ambrosus InnoLab to collaborate with local stakeholders and other innovative companies.

AMB-NET: The Enterprise Solution

Second, the Ambrosus enterprise solution — AMB-NET — is another core component of the Ambrosus ecosystem that will continue to evolve into the future. While AMB-NET makes use of a public blockchain, it also provides an easy and efficient way for traditional IT systems from client companies to connect to the Ambrosus Network, upload their data, and manage it efficiently and for optimal effect. As such, the main questions behind the decentralisation of AMB-NET concern who is allowed onto the network, how data is stored on the network, and who can access what data?

In such a system, all of the data uploaded by client companies is verified by Apollo nodes, and stored in distributed storage by the various Atlas nodes. As such, there no central entity in control of the data at any point in time. Importantly, the data uploaded by a client company can be selected to either remain: a) private for only the client company’s use, b) semi-private for use between the client company and a designated third party, or c) public for everyone to see. By configuring AMB-NET in such a way, a delicate balance is crafted between the needs of client companies, and the ability to add increased levels of transparency in the supply chain process.

In terms of the centralisation or decentralisation of the Ambrosus Enterprise Solution the following can be said:

On the one hand, the Ambrosus blockchain is clearly public and decentralised. All data is stored in a decentralised manner by Atlas nodes. All transactions are verified on the network in a decentralised manner by Apollo nodes. And finally, all data is uploaded to the network in a decentralised manner by Hermes nodes. Thus, unlike a private blockchain, the Ambrosus blockchain is decentralised insofar as it designates the proof and quality assurance of the products traced on the supply chain to the various Apollo, Hermes, and Atlas nodes on the network. This ultimately means that the transparency and truthfulness of the blockchain can be fully applied to the previously convoluted supply chain process in a manner where no central entity holds all the keys to the system. For consumers, this is a holistic traceability system that allows them to fully trust the data about their food.

At the same time, specific data can be chosen to be public, private, or semi-private, in order to appeal to enterprise needs and align with industry business standards. Finally, a very high level of security can be guaranteed for all of the data operating on the Ambrosus network: by keeping the various nodes decentralised, the entire network itself is never at risk of being compromised.

On the other hand, the Ambrosus enterprise solution also remains appropriately centralised: In order to ensure the proper functioning of the network, and to guarantee the security of a client company’s data from malicious actors, all masternodes initially require permission in order to run on the Ambrosus Network (AMB-NET). Apollo and Hermes nodes must be KYC screened, and contracted to uphold a certain service level agreement (SLA). This is so as to ensure the privacy of a company’s data, as well as to guarantee the uptime of the Ambrosus Network for optimized efficiency and reliability. In this sense, the centralised component of the Ambrosus enterprise solution is something that is required for legal and enterprise needs: it can be seen as a competitive advantage.

In the future, complete decentralisation or access to AMB-NET will eventually become possible once the network has grown, and more companies begin to utilize the Ambrosus solution. Through the use of smart contracts, and eventually artificial intelligence, companies will someday be able to individually make use of the Ambrosus blockchain seamlessly and without any permission apart from that contained within the pre-programmed smart contracts.

The Developer Portal: Open-Source Development

Third and finally, the Ambrosus Ecosystem is equipped with SDK’s that allow for developers, client companies, and Ambrosus itself to develop dApps on top of the Ambrosus blockchain. While the list of possible applications which can be built is vast, current developer projects include areas such as: food recalls, disaster management, and dashboard management and interfacing for companies.

From the very beginning of the development of AMB-NET and the various SDK’s, all of the most important code has been publicly updated on github, for the community to develop and experiment with. As such, a large part of the development behind the Ambrosus blockchain and application layer has been and remains open-sourced.

Importantly, this open source development process inherent to the Ambrosus Ecosystem is heavily decentralised: any interested developer or individual can access the code that AMB-NET has been built upon or the various SDK’s needed to build a dApp on top of AMB-NET. By doing this in an open-source and transparent manner, insight from the community can be incorporated into the Ambrosus ecosystem, and innovative applications can be built on top of the Ambrosus Network, to provide businesses and consumers alike with never-before-seen access to their food and medicine.

Conclusion:

Based on the three fundamental components which make up the Ambrosus Ecosystem, a clear conclusion can be derived concerning the degree of centralisation or decentralisation present: First, all centralised management that has been mentioned, such as the InnoLab, the KYC screening for Apollo and Hermes nodes, the need for permission to access the network, and the need to work with Ambrosus to use AMB-NET, is due to the enterprise requirements that Ambrosus has oriented itself towards: companies need to be able to rely on AMB-NET in order to operate nodes as needed, and often times with a consistent level of service provided. Meanwhile, the sensor laboratory functions as the key competitive advantage that Ambrosus possesses, and as such must remain private.

In terms of the decentralisation of the Ambrosus Ecosystem the following can be said: Ambrosus operates a public blockchain whereby responsibility for data validation and storage is distributed across the network. Public data, and the hashes of all private data are visible to any interested third party at all times. Such a hash functions as a proof-of-compliance for enterprises, while also allowing them to maintain the privacy of their data. Finally, significant amounts of code, especially pertaining to the Ambrosus SDK’s have been uploaded to github, as a means of supporting open-source development by a community of developers.

From all of this it becomes clear that not only is Ambrosus the only solution that can adequately fit legal, economic, and administrative standards, but more importantly, Ambrosus can apply its blockchain and IoT solution to food, pharmaceutical and chemical products in a way that allows for an unprecedented degree of transparency and open-source creativity. All in all, Ambrosus is as centralised as it must be, while also remaining as decentralised as possible.