Smart-city tech in focus

China and the United States, the world's two largest smart city markets, can work together to push artificial intelligence application in smart city development, said experts.

"The US leads the world in technology innovation; China has the largest market, and it is passionate and hardworking to develop AI technologies. I think the two countries have a lot to collaborate on," said Li Yangming, a Chinese IT expert and visiting fellow at Stanford University.

China's AI industry market was valued at about $3.5 billion in 2017, with the growth rate expected to reach 75 percent in 2018, according to a Tsinghua University's China's AI Development Report 2018.

A recent Deloitte report also found that China has about 500 smart city pilots, more than any other country in the world.

"The Chinese government puts great emphasis on developing new technologies. You can see it from the huge investment it has made in AI and smart city development," said Li at a seminar hosted by Stanford US-Asia Technology Management Center and Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures on Thursday.

"Almost every city's mayor is talking about smart cities, AI, big data, cloud computing," he said.

Li's smart oilfield solution company Richfit, which later became a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp, has joined tens of smart city projects in China.

Li said the actual number of smart city programs in China is much more than 500 because many small cities may not have been counted. He used the city of Fuyuan in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province as an example.

Richfit won the bid to design the IT infrastructure, control and command center as well as data center for the city with a population of 112,000.

"The smart city's first step is to make a unified plan and build a unified data center and control center. In the next step, with the help of integrated platforms and collected data, the smart city will come true," said Li.

Aside from the huge market, China also enjoys advantage in massive data collection for analytics, said Wenli Yu, co-founder and CEO of Archimedes, a Silicon Valley-based company which provides technologies and services for data centers.

The US and China are home to 55 percent of the world's data centers — the US has 45 percent and China has 10 percent, said Yu.

"4G and 5G mobile data networks are almost everywhere. Low-cost mobile data services are offered by all the three telecom carriers," he said. "Smart grid development and third-party power trading entities are now allowed."

"Even 10 years ago, all the street lights (in China) were all LED. There were street sensors for traffic tracking and control," said Yu. "It all happens very quickly, because whenever there's a hot technology, the Chinese people will go for it."

China's big tech companies like Alibaba and Huawei also joined the smart city race by starting AI smart city platforms.

Launched in 2016 in Hangzhou, Alibaba's "City Brain" project uses cameras systems and sensors across the city to collect data on road conditions.

By pulling from traffic and weather data, the City Brain analyses real-time traffic flow to regulate traffic signals.

Huawei has recently unveiled a smart city digital platform by using AI and Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, which could be used in public safety, environmental protection, transportation, government and others.

Contact the writer at liazhu@chinadailyusa.com