Seizing the 5G trend, smart city construction enters a new stage

With the arrival of the new 5G infrastructure wave, the spring of new smart city construction is accelerating.

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The National Development and Reform Commission recently issued the "Key Tasks for New Urbanization Construction and Urban-Rural Integration Development in 2020" (hereinafter referred to as the "Key Tasks"). Compared with the key tasks for new urbanization construction in 2019, this year's focus on new smart city construction has increased significantly.

The "Key Tasks" proposes to implement new smart city actions, improve the city's digital management platform and perception system, connect community terminals, build a dense data grid, integrate information systems and data resources in the fields of health, public safety, emergency management, transportation, etc., deepen the "one-stop service" of government services and "one-network management" of urban operations, and support the healthy and efficient operation of cities and rapid and intelligent response to emergencies.

"The proposal of these key tasks is related to the role and potential of smart city construction in this epidemic." Zhuo Xian, deputy director of the Development Strategy and Regional Economy Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said in an interview with a reporter from China Economic Times that the epidemic is a stress test to test the results of my country's smart city construction. In ensuring the "two battles" of epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, smart cities have played an important role, effectively promoting scientific decision-making, efficient governance, and precise services, but there is still much room for improvement in the future.

Zhuo Xian believes that after this "epidemic", the importance of building a new type of smart city has been further highlighted, and new opportunities are also hidden therein.

New infrastructure sets off a boom in smart city construction

Driven by policy dividends and technological innovation, my country's new smart city construction has been in full swing in recent years. Shan Zhiguang, director of the Information Technology and Industrial Development Department of the National Information Center, believes that my country's smart city construction has moved from starting and following to a new stage of running with the international advanced level.

New infrastructure is a great opportunity for the leap forward of smart city construction. In the next few years, the new generation of information technology represented by 5G integrated with artificial intelligence, big data analysis, cloud computing and the Internet of Things will further accelerate the construction of smart cities.

While seizing the opportunity of new infrastructure, increasing investment in smart city layout has become the unanimous choice of governments in many places.

In Zhuoxian's view, as one of the important directions of new infrastructure, the key to the construction of new smart cities lies in building an efficient and secure information network system through the combination of hardware, software, and application scenarios. The government needs to build hardware infrastructure, build a new generation of information networks, and improve e-government; enterprises need to design better products in urban information networks, including consumer Internet, industrial Internet, transportation Internet of Things and other fields; individuals and communities should apply these products more and more effectively, thereby continuously enriching application scenarios.

Zhu Rui, a researcher at Tsinghua University Think Tank, suggested in an interview with a reporter from China Economic Times that we should give full play to the important role of multiple market entities. First, we should broaden the feedback channels for smart city construction and pay attention to the demands of the public and enterprises. Second, we should strengthen cooperation and exchanges between government and enterprises and give play to the advantages of enterprises in their keen perception of technological iterations and changes in market demand. Third, we should strengthen talent training and the integration of cross-departmental industry talent resources.

As the upsurge of smart city construction will continue for many years, it is necessary to pay close attention to how to balance the appropriate advancement of information infrastructure construction and investment effectiveness in practice and avoid duplication and waste of construction.

One of the topics for quiet contemplation.

Promoting business environment improvement through smart city construction

Smart cities play two main functions: one is to improve efficiency, and the other is to reduce risks. In the past, the construction of smart cities focused on improving efficiency. The outbreak of this epidemic has also made people realize that smart cities can also play a big role in reducing risks.

"The construction of new smart cities should be promoted from the perspective of enhancing my country's comparative advantage in the global business environment, and give full play to the two functions of smart cities in improving efficiency and reducing risks." Zhuo Xian believes that the construction of new smart cities should be one of the important contents of improving the business environment in various regions. "In the global competition, our comparative advantage used to be labor costs, but now it is a relatively complete industrial chain, and in the future it should be the business environment. In the future world of the Internet of Everything, all elements of the business environment will be mapped to the smart city network. The degree of advancement and perfection of a region's smart city network system determines the efficiency of economic operation and the resilience and elasticity of social production activities in dealing with various crises, and is an important indicator of the business environment."

Under the impact of the epidemic, the division of labor in the global production network will continue to reorganize. Zhuo Xian believes that we should take this opportunity to accelerate the construction of new smart cities to enhance the competitiveness of China's business environment and consolidate the industrial chain, so as to occupy a more advantageous position in global competition and cooperation. "While continuing to improve infrastructure and institutional systems, we should further play the role of new smart city construction in improving China's business environment."

To make cities more and more intelligent, the road of exploration is long and arduous, but we will reach our destination if we keep on moving forward.