People visit the Smart City Zone during the third Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Xu Yu)
BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- In the near future, ever escalating construction of smart cities is likely to enable Chinese cities to equip with "brains" capable of thinking and "neural networks" adept at coordinating with other urban public systems.
By then, flexibly adjusting public charging piles distribution, dispatching shared bikes pursuant to pedestrian flow changes, and optimizing ambulance routes via automatic linking of urban drainage system and traffic control system when rainstorm alarm rings will all be a common sight.
-- Smart cities construction in full swing
Along with the burgeoning big AI models and accelerating urbanization process comes another bout of urban intelligent agents construction and upgrading in China and many large Chinese companies seized the chance to gain a foothold.
On March 15, China's technology company Lenovo Group inked an agreement with Wuyishan city government to jointly craft an urban super intelligent agent in the city located in southeast China's Fujian Province.
As an innovative endeavor that integrates AI with urban governance, the program will leverage Lenovo Group's full-stack AI capabilities and Wuyishan City's culture, tourism and tea industries to build a smart hub to optimize urban governance, public service, and industrial upgrading.
On March 19, the company signed another urban super intelligent agent contract with related parties in Yichang City of Central China's Hubei Province. By adopting the "one multiplies N" mode, an intelligent hub allowing coordinated work of a super intelligent agent and intelligent agents of diverse fields will be erected to facilitate Yichang's industrial resource integration, urban governance, public service and industrial upgrading.
Representing upgraded "urban brain", core of last-generation smart cities, the urban super intelligent agent of Lenovo Group refers to a new type of platforms based on big AI models and intelligent agent technologies.
Apart from being able to understand intentions, such urban super intelligent agent can also plan and handle complex tasks and provide customized "AI plus" solutions for diverse industries and clients in a city, serving as a pivotal access for urban full-scenario AI applications.
Prior to these, Huawei, a global supplier of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, signed a deal with Zhengzhou city government on March 13 to deepen their strategic partnership and cooperate in innovation platform establishment, governmental affairs service, digital economy, and digital talent cultivation.
Currently, Huawei is crafting a new type of digital infrastructure on basis of the urban intelligent agent framework and has been executing related programs in more than 200 Chinese cities such as Shenzhen, Nanjing, Changsha, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Changchun.
Other industry leaders such as Alibaba, China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile are also plunging into deep integration of digital technologies and industrial scenarios to upgrade their smart cities solutions.
-- Significant opportunities for related industrial chains
As smart cities construction advances, related industries in China are embracing enormous development opportunities.
According to International Data Corporation (IDC), investment in the ICT market relative to smart cities in China is expected to reach 1.23 trillion yuan by 2028 and compound average annual growth rate hereof is projected to be 7.1 percent from 2023 to 2028.
Ever upgrading smart cities solutions are bringing the smart city concept into real scenarios of a wide range of industries in cities, said Zeng Gang, head of the Institute of Urban Development at East China Normal University.
Smart cities stand for a "racetrack" that boasts huge commercial potential and it is the hidden market demand that has spurred some Chinese tech giants' rushing into the arena.
In May 2024, Huawei and its partners including iFLYTEK, Chinasoft International, Nanwei Software, etc. initiated an innovative industry alliance to boost urban AI and new quality productive forces.
With a focus on new type of infrastructure such as computing power, AI and data factors, the alliance seeks to build the intelligence fundamental of cities, integrate profoundly digital technologies with industrial scenarios and expedite innovative application of new quality productive forces.
Geovis Technology, a Chinese geographic information systems (GIS) and location-based services provider, developed its cloud platforms to support urban real-time operation monitoring and assist decision-making with its big data, cloud computing and AI technology stack.
Completing development of a multi-party co-construction system for smart cities, Ropeok Technology Group said the AI recognition-based system can automatically parse and tackle governmental affairs consulting from the public.
Via its natural language processing technology, efficiency and quality of related public service are expected to be improved, according to the company, an integrated security service and solution provider.
Others alike either offer customized intelligent information solutions or develop AI products such as city lifeline big model, smart Q&A system, smart campus management assistant, and pipe gallery patrol robot to tap into the growing smart cities market.
(Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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