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This question is explicitly obscured in the documentation: https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/latest/fabric_m...

I suspect you can plug in any consensus technique. For a private blockchain like this, you can go light because all participants are trusted not to misbehave.

At that point you might ask "so why are you using a blockchain at all", but you won't rack up billable consultant hours with that sort of thinking.

The first paragraph mentions it's using Hyperledger's Fabric[1] blockchain implementation. I assume they're building their own smart contracts on top of that.

[1] https://github.com/hyperledger/fabric

The hyperledger equivalent of ethereum's smart contracts is called chaincode. I'm playing around with it now - so far enjoying it much more than smart contracts.

https://github.com/IBM-Blockchain/learn-chaincode

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a private blockchain with access via paid subscription and thin clients that don't have to pull all of the chain to view it.