Microsoft is having early success selling a blockchain service to companies, Microsoft’s cloud chief Scott Guthrie says, giving the company an edge over its public cloud rival Amazon Web Services, which doesn’t have its own blockchain offering.

Microsoft introduced a blockchain service on its public cloud in 2015 and has been adding features to it ever since, announcing a new security feature just this month. Among customers using it are financial firms settling trades, he said. Mr. Guthrie hopes the blockchain product, as well as artificial intelligence services Microsoft has rolled out, will help the company gain further ground on AWS.