Alibaba has pledged to use a range of technologies and applications to turn Xiongan into a ‘prototyped smart city’. Source: Shutterstock.com
Alibaba plans to build Xiongan New Area into an AI ‘smart city’
XIONGAN New Area, an economic zone to be built southwest of Beijing, has partnered with e-commerce giant Alibaba to transform itself into a smart city.
The area comprises the counties Xiong, Rongcheng and Anxin in Hebei province – which are currently places of little financial and industrial support. However, the Chinese president Xi Jinping is determined to transform the area into an economic zone that rivals Shanghai.
As reported by ChinaDaily, the Xiongan New Area management committee and Alibaba this week signed an agreement of strategic cooperation to join together to build “a city brain” run by artificial intelligence for Xiongan, making the president’s hopes for the area achievable.
Alibaba has pledged to use a range of technologies and applications to turn Xiongan into a “prototyped smart city”.
China's Xiongan New Area to be built into a smart city with "city brain" run by AI technology https://t.co/Y5aJ7h0sGw pic.twitter.com/cCYW1O3JbE
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) November 8, 2017
The proposed smart city will have cloud computing as its primary infrastructure, with the internet of things serving its nervous system.
“Our purpose is not to do business in Xiongan, but to bring our technological prowess and innovation resources to build it into a prototyped city of the future and a model for all Chinese cities,” said founder and chairman of Alibaba Jack Ma in a statement.
The partnership aims to combine IoT and big data processing technology to help plan and manage the city’s consumption, production and supply chains. The result of this is a secure digital logistics system for the city.
On top of this, the AI controlled city is expected to lead to better solutions for the city’s transport, energy and water supply system. Under the collaboration between Xiongan and Alibaba, the new digital city is expected to feature things such as smart metering, intelligent parking and cashier-less supermarkets.
Alibaba also announced this week the registration in Xiongan of three affiliates in the fintech, technology and logistics areas.