Page 241 - Artificial Intelligence for the Internet of Everything

222 Artificial Intelligence for the Internet of Everything

of y in the tree. Here x 1 through x 4 are different hashes that get concatenated
to obtain higher level nodes x 12 and x 34 . The nodes are further concatenated
to yield the root node of the tree, x top . To verify if y exists in the tree (in
place of x 2 ), x 1 and y are concatenated to obtain a node y 2 ¼h(x 1 j y). This
node is then concatenated with x 34 to obtain y 3 ¼h(y 2 j x 34 ). If y 3 ¼x top ,
then y exists in the tree (Buldas et al., 2013).

12.3 AI—BLOCKCHAIN TO SECURE YOUR ENERGY
SUPPLY CHAIN

Before applying blockchain technology to help optimize or secure the elec-
tricity infrastructure, it is important to determine if the distributed ledger
technology solution being applied is interoperable, secure, and affordable
and can clear transactions in a timely manner. Another important consider-
ation is to determine what specific blockchain solution would be the best fit
for solving this problem. A number of blockchain solutions could potentially
create more challenges by expanding security gaps, increasing costs, or
decreasing security rather than creating efficiencies and increasing security.
Blockchain solutions that help track and secure large data sets also need to be
energy efficient, economic, and interoperable with the current technology
stack as well as other blockchains. Cost, functionality, scalability, and cyber
resilience were all imperative functional requirements for the AI blockchain
solution explored in this study. The roadmap shown in Fig. 12.2 was devel-
oped to help determine when to use blockchain to increase the cyber secu-
rity of the electricity infrastructure (Figs. 12.3 and 12.4).

12.4 POTENTIAL BLOCKCHAIN BUSINESS
AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES

AI-enabled blockchain shows great promise in giving impetus to and secur-
ing the energy supply chain to DAEO. However, additional study, valida-
tion, and verification of the blockchain application for grid cyber security are
needed due to various challenges in applying DLT to secure and optimize
complex systems.
One challenge is that blockchain technology—like its application to the
energy space—is at a nascent stage. Evolving blockchain definitions create
several challenges from a policy perspective. It is noted that the rapidly
changing and contested vocabulary and definitions poses challenges for reg-
ulators seeking to understand, govern, and audit blockchain technology.