China claims it has the most number of blockchain projects in the world, according to the China Internet Information Center – the Communist nation’s authorized government portal.

Its website China.org.cn reported (Apr 2) that as of November last year, this country has 263 blockchain projects underway, which supposedly makes 25% of the global total going by information from Blockdata in Beijing.

A Deloitte global blockchain survey last year revealed that almost 50% of respondents in China said blockchain was already in use in their organizations –  compared with only 14% in the US.

Blockchain is used in areas like financial services, public services, healthcare, supply chains, smart manufacturing, and logistics in China. Li Qilei, CTO Chinese blockchain platform developer Qulian Technology, said the financial industry is now the biggest user of blockchain for areas like asset securitization for banks and brokers.

Qulian is one of over 600 blockchain companies in China. 82% of them were founded between 2016 and 2018, according to Beijing think tank EO Intelligence. Half of them are working on blockchain solutions for the financial industry.

Technology heavyweights Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (also known collectively as BAT in industry circles) have all launched their own blockchain initiatives. Alibaba has been deploying blockchain in public welfare, food, and healthcare since 2016.

It has 90 blockchain-related patents, the most such patents filed by any company. IBM follows with 89 patents, with Tencent ranked 8th with 40 patents, while Baidu came in at 40th with fewer than 20, according to a list last year by Beijing intellectual property information media outlet IPRdaily.

Also last year, data collected by Thomson Reuters from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) revealed that more than half of the 406 blockchain-related patents filed in 2017 came from China. The country’s 225 filings made it the world’s most, followed a far cry behind by the US with 91, and Australia with 13.