Confirmed: Baidu and TRON to Cooperate on Cloud Computing Resources

Decentralized Internet project TRON (TRX) and China's largest Internet search provider Baidu will cooperate on cloud computing resources, according to an official tweet from the TRON Foundation posted yesterday, October 17.

The tweet confirms a series of unofficial reports that have been circulating since Oct. 13. The first indication that the nature of the Baidu-TRON cooperation would be specifically centered on cloud service provision surfaced earlier this week, in the same report from local news source ODaily that TRON has today retweeted, sealing its official confirmation of the news.

ODaily’s text states that Baidu Cloud and TRON have closed a deal to cooperate in terms of “basic cloud business,” outlining that both parties will work to maximize intercompatibility and “to build, operate and debug blockchain products” based on Baidu Cloud.

Notably, the partnership between the two firms remains focused on the purchase and use of Baidu's basic cloud computing resources, rather than being a connection “at the blockchain business level.”

The Tron Foundation has today in its tweet presented the cooperation as being a bid to make “blockchain solutions […] more accessible for users and small businesses alike. End goal: mass adoption of #blockchain.”

ODaily further detailed that Baidu has plans “at the same time,” to release its so-called “Blockchain Commercialization Super Partner Plan v1.0,” which focuses on tech exploration and revenue sharing with “commercial super partners,” and is reportedly based on the firm’s “Super Chain” infrastructure.

Baidu had first introduced the idea of commercializing its cloud blockchain Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform in a white paper focused on the development of its “Super Chain” network system, published late September.

As previously reported, ahead of today’s official confirmation, TRON CEO Justin Sun hinted on Twitter Oct. 12 at a secret “partnership” with an unnamed “industry giant” that is valued at “tens of billions of dollars.”

Some crypto commentators have more broadly taken issue with the characterization of the Baidu-TRON agreement as a “partnership”; in a tweet linked to the Oct.15 ODaily source, popular Twitter crypto commentator Ari Paul argued that:

“If I buy a computer with Microsoft Windows installed, I should not claim to have partnered with Microsoft without clarifying the limited nature of the ‘partnership.’”