Beijing, Dec. 5 (Xinhua): Government officials, enterprise leaders, and scholars from Asian countries gathered at the Asia Youth Forum held in Guangzhou, China and discussed the role of smart cities in changing future life and cooperation among Asian countries in this field, according to Xinhua.
The speakers discussed the topic “Technology innovation and smart cities” at the forum.
A smart city utilises all of the technologies such as AI, blockchain, and 5G to provide more efficient and easy services to people, said Kashif Sharif, Associate Professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology.
He mentioned the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as an example, saying, “Guangdong cities, Hong Kong, and Macao could be smart by using different technologies, but they can be super smart if they link all these cities and their technologies together.” If so, people can travel seamlessly while such things as virus tracking can also be done equally as seamlessly.”
Guangzhou Metro Group’s General Manager, Liu Zhicheng, said Guangzhou Metro aims to be ‘smarter’. “Firstly, it means smart manufacturing, which is safer, greener, and more efficient. Secondly, it means smart travel for passengers through automatic operation, smart safety checks, and quick payment. Last but not least, we keep optimising production efficiency and cost control through cloud platforms, IoT, and big data technologies.”
Chng Ken Wei, Centre Director (China) at Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore, explained that Singapore has implemented a smart city plan, the iN2015 Masterplan, in 2015. “The plan has three simple goals: to bring citizens a comfortable and happy life, to help enterprises achieve their full potential, and to improve the efficiency of governance.”
“The development of a smart city would also bring new social problems, such as the development of robotics, which would reduce demand for jobs such as taxi drivers, factory workers, and cleaners while deepening the talent shortage. It requires lots of training and retaining, for which we have offered lots of investment and subsidies”, he added.
