AI-generated summary
At the 2021 CES event held in January, Shanghai was recognized as the Smart City of the Year, showcasing innovative projects that offer valuable insights for urban development globally. Among the most notable initiatives is City Brain, developed by Alibaba, which leverages artificial intelligence, facial recognition, drones, and satellite imagery to address urban challenges like traffic management, security, and illegal dumping. This AI-driven system can optimize traffic light timing and alert emergency services, significantly improving congestion as demonstrated in Hangzhou, which dropped from the 3rd to the 48th most congested city in China within a year of implementation. While such surveillance-based solutions face adoption challenges in Western countries, traffic management technologies hold transferable potential.
Shanghai’s Smart City efforts also include the Smart Shanghai plan (2016-2020), which established comprehensive digital infrastructure, achieving full 5G coverage and near-universal gigabit fiber connectivity. Additionally, the city’s e-government platform serves over 14 million users, earning praise in the 2020 UN E-Government Survey for its efficient single-window public service system. Looking ahead, Shanghai aims to blend innovation, humanism, and ecology in its urban development. These advancements highlight the importance of monitoring smart city trends in Asia to understand the future challenges and opportunities shaping urban living worldwide.
The megacity, named the best Smart City 2020 in the 2020 digital edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress, has become a resilient and ecological standard of living
This year 2021 the CES was held between January 11 and 14. Shanghai, named SmartCity of the Year, has presented a series of projects that can serve as inspiration for other cities around the world.
We mention three of the most interesting:
City Brain
1.- The first noteworthy project is City Brain: Shanghai has implemented Alibaba’s City Brain solution, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to solve problems of transport, security and urban planning, among others. Biometric facial recognition cameras, drones, and satellite imagery help capture millions of images of city streets. Deep learning AI systems can identify problems such as traffic violations or illegal garbage dumps. The system can also adjust the timing of traffic lights or alert emergency services. City Brain is implemented in at least 23 cities.
In the Western world and especially in Europe, it seems very difficult to implement this type of solution with such a “citizen surveillance” component, although the solutions to manage traffic could be transferred. The first city to deploy the intelligent traffic system, Hangzhou, in just one year went from No. 3 among China’s most congested cities to No. 48.
Smart Shanghai
2.- The second is connectivity: The Smart Shanghai – People-Oriented Smart City plan (2016-2020) provided for the deployment of the digital infrastructure necessary to become the first “double gigabit” city, achieving full 5G coverage in the downtown area and also achieving 1 Gigabit fiber coverage in 99% of the city.
E-Government
3.- Thirdly, mention its e-government initiative, which has more than 14 million users within a total population of more than 24 million. The 2020 United Nations E-Government Survey (UN E-Government Survey 2020) cites Shanghai’s single-window public service system as a prominent and successful example.
Finally, it should be noted that they have just announced their plans for the coming years, with the goal of becoming a city that combines innovation, humanism and ecology.
We will have to keep an eye on Smart City developments in Asia. Delving into the problem of smart cities, if you want to know where cities are going, what challenges they will face in the coming years or what elements we must take into account when it is our turn to make the decisions that will shape the urban landscape of the future, we invite you to read our Future Trends Forum trend “Disruptive cities“.
