Input Output Global (IOG), the company that built the Cardano blockchain, has invested $4.5 million in a blockchain hub at Stanford University.
Along with Stanford, IOG has established research facilities and joint ventures with the Universities of Edinburgh, Wyoming, Athens, and Tokyo Institute of Technology. Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, gave $20 million to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) last year to launch the Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics.
Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, is a hub for technological advancement. In 2018, the university established a Center for Blockchain Research under the direction of two academics specializing in cryptography, Dan Boneh and David Mazières.
According to Coindesk, Tim Harrison, vice president of community and ecosystem at IOG, stated that IOG and Stanford had been working together for some time. “Before the research hub, we donated $500,000 to fund their research into blockchain scalability. As one of the world’s leading academic institutions, Stanford is an ideal location for the hub,” Harrison stated in an email.
Harrison’s email to the reporters also wrote, “Healthy competition is a vital part of any growing industry, but especially in its early days, every player also needs to play its part in growing the space as a whole. Researchers at the university will be able to put forward innovative projects that will impact the blockchain industry.”
The IOG’s ambition requires collaboration with universities like Stanford to establish blockchain research centres, according to CEO Charles Hoskinson. In a statement, Hoskinson claimed that the Research Hub will “give a new layer of validity to our sector that we haven’t always been afforded” and that blockchain development will “grow even quicker” due to the new learnings that will emerge.
