China’s federal science institution, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is taking part in a new research effort around blockchain.

The highest academy for science in China said it had established a new “Big Data and Blockchain Lab” during a seminar on June 15, according to People’s Daily, the state-run media outlet. The lab, which is being launched in collaboration with Beijing-based blockchain startup Tai Cloud Corp, will focus on “the relationship between blockchain technology and mathematics.”

Xiaoshan Gao, the deputy director at the center for mathematics and interdisciplinary sciences in CAS, said at the seminar that he believes the mathematical methods will play a “key” role in many core issues in blockchain technology.

The lab, which was launched not long after Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsed blockchain technology at the annual academic conference hosted by CAS last month, is the newest move by the academy in the area of blockchain.

As previously reported by CoinDesk, the academy announced it was looking at the development of a platform that could “simultaneously support public, private and consortium blockchains” earlier this year.

Beijing landscape image via Shutterstock