The model with most technologies that emerged over the years has been for technology companies to develop a technology and then take it to market, educate businesses about how it can increase their profits, cut expenditures, and make them more efficient. Blockchain represents an interesting paradigm shift, according to Joyce Shen, director of emerging tech partnerships and investments for Thomson Reuters.

“This time it’s different,” she told Jeff Frick, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team. “The business adopters, the financial services firms, the governments, the insurance companies, the advertisers — they’re all looking at it themselves,” she said.

This, together with the work of technologists themselves, generates both top-down and bottom-up momentum for blockchain, which Shen acknowledges is still a nascent technology.

The next industrial revolution?

Shen spoke about economists predicting a new industrial revolution in coming years, led by emerging technology that will fundamentally shift business models in many industries. She said that blockchain is one technology with a lot of potential to disrupt industry, and she sees the large, legacy companies taking an interest.

“A lot of these companies like Intel and IBM and Microsoft have enough technical expertise, as well as resources, to be able to accelerate the efforts,” she added.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Blockchain Conference San Francisco 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE