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Investing.com — Google (Alphabet Inc) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) shares rose 2.4% on Thursday after CNBC reported the tech giant has formed a division to build a business around blockchain applications.
The move is to grow the company’s prospects in industries such as retail and healthcare, with CNBC adding that success could help the company move away from just advertising and build up its computing and storage services business.
Google’s head of strategy for digital assets at its cloud unit, Richard Widmann said the cloud group plans to hire various blockchain experts.
CNBC quoted Widmann explaining that there are “things we can do to reduce the frictions some customers have with respect to paying for centralized cloud utilizing cryptocurrencies.”
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Shivakumar Venkataraman, an engineering vice president for Google, would lead the blockchain unit. Meanwhile, earlier this week it reported that YouTube is exploring NFT features for video creators.
