Maersk, IBM to discontinue TradeLens in 2023

On November 30th, Maersk issued a document announcing that A.P. Moller-Maersk and IBM announced yesterday that they decided to abandon the TradeLens™ product (hereinafter referred to as Tradelens) and stop operating the platform.

A.P. Moller-Maersk Head of Business Platforms Rotem Hershko said: "We hope to establish an open and neutral industry platform to help the digitalization of the global supply chain to achieve a leap forward. TradeLens came into being under this vision. Unfortunately, although we successfully developed It has acquired the platform, but it has not achieved the full range of global relevant industry collaboration needs, nor has it achieved the level of commercial viability required to continue operating as a stand-alone business and meet financial expectations."

Effective today, the TradeLens team will be taking relevant actions to abandon the product and terminate operations of the platform, which is expected to go offline by the end of Q1 2023. During this process, all parties involved will ensure that customer business is not affected.

Maersk will continue its efforts to digitize the supply chain and achieve industry innovation through other solutions to reduce trade friction and facilitate global trade.

Rotem Hershko said: "I am very grateful for the unremitting efforts of the industry members and relevant technical personnel participating in the platform. They have worked together to promote the digital development of the industry through the TradeLens platform. We will use the experience of TradeLens as the cornerstone to further promote the company's digitalization process, and look forward to the future. New ways to leverage the energy and capabilities of technical talent."

The TradeLens platform was jointly developed by Maersk and IBM in 2018. It is a shipping logistics platform based on blockchain technology and aims to promote more efficient and secure global trade.

The shipping industry has been lacking in innovation since the container was invented in the 1950s. The establishment of Maersk's TradeLens has successively opened the prelude to the "blockchain revolution" in the shipping field. Today, the Maersk blockchain project encountered Waterloo and gave up stopping operations, which is inevitably shocking and embarrassing. What do you think?