The recent in a series of academic research outposts worldwide, Input Output Global (IOG) — the blockchain builder of Cardano — has invested a total of $4.5 million to a blockchain hub at Stanford University.
Along with Stanford, IOG has established research labs and joint ventures with four educational facilities: Tokyo Institute of Technology, University of Athens, University of Wyoming, and the University of Edinburgh.
Last year, in an effort to establish the Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has contributed $20 million in donations to Carnegie Mellion University (CMU).
Located in Palo Alto of California, Stanford University is a hub for technological advancement. In 2018, the university established a Center for Blockchain Research under the direction of two cryptography-specialized professors, David Mazières and Dan Boneh.
Tim Harrison, vice president of Community and Ecosystem at IOG, said the firm has partnered with Stanford for some time. Harrison wrote in an email stating that IOG had donated $500,000 to support the university’s efforts to study the scalability of blockchains. Stanford is the perfect choice for the hub due to its status as one of the top academic institutions in the world.
Harrison responded that the project aims to “to fund researchers from multidisciplinary backgrounds” when asked if the new IOG-backed blockchain hub would promote the Cardano ecosystem or subjects related to Cardano, such as programming language Haskell.
According to CEO Charles Hoskinson, the IOG’s ambition requires the collaboration of universities like Stanford to establish a blockchain research hub. 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 can grow even more rapidly “based on the new learnings that will emerge.”
Harrison admitted that healthy rivalry is an essential component of any expanding sector, particularly in the beginning. However, he pointed out that each player must also contribute to the expansion of the space as a whole. With this, the university researchers will be able to present innovative initiatives that will change the blockchain industry, he added.
