Shenzhen has emerged as a pioneering smart city. Read about the tech that's making it happen.
By People's Daily
In the Shenzhen Government Management and Service Command Center, an HD LED screen displays a constant scroll of updates on 14 smart city projects that are reshaping various aspects of city life, including economic development, environmental management, government services, and urban governance.
Fine-grained management: Building a digital foundation for the smart city
Shenzhen is one of the first pilot smart cities of China. In 2018, the city issued the New-Style Smart City Development Plan, laying out a coordinated approach for its transition into a smart city.
"At the Shenzhen Government Management and Service Command Center, we’re building a proactive, precise, comprehensive, and intelligent government management and service system, and using data to drive fine-grained, scientific, and intelligent city management services," said Chen Chaoxiang, Deputy Inspector of Government Services and Data Management Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality.
Established by Shenzhen municipal government and Huawei, this center is a smart city operation command hub that’s able to see, use, think, and coordinate. To date, the center has accessed 82 systems across the city and converged 100 types of service data and over 380,000 surveillance videos from various government departments. This has helped the center build more than 200 level-1 indicators for monitoring the vital signs of the city, transforming experience-based urban governance into scientific governance.
A 360-degree view
An employee presses a button and brings up the transparent kitchen surveillance system on the screen. A warning message flashes up, informing center staff that at 14:55 in a restaurant of Luohu District, a cook wasn’t wearing work clothes and a dustbin was missing a lid. This system uses computer vision for the remote, real-time monitoring of restaurant kitchens, guaranteeing food safety for consumers. The employee proceeds to toggle through some other systems: We see images of Shenzhen's roads, beaches, and ports, all displayed in real time.
"The center can offer a 360-degree view of Shenzhen," says Yang Feng, head of Government Service Data Management Division of Shenzhen Government Services and Data Management Bureau. "By visualizing key indicators of the city's operations, the center provides insights into city operations from the macro, mid-scale, and micro perspectives, and promptly detects risks to support the local government's decision-making with data."
The center is a command center that assigns incident-handling tasks. In the first half of this year, the government held several pandemic prevention and control meetings and assigned tasks in the center.
According to Chen, the large screen is supported by small and medium-sized screens so that staff can check the city's operation status anytime, anywhere. The smart government service system makes public services more efficient. Thanks to HUAWEI CLOUD solutions, Shenzhen citizens can access most government departments from one device and handle over 7,700 different types of approval and public service transactions using the mobile government service platform, iShenzhen.
More convenient transportation: Creating an intelligent and comprehensive transportation system
Shenzhen resident Li Bin finds that travel is now much easier than before, citing the facial recognition system deployed at Shenzhen International Airport last year. Made possible by Huawei's digital transformation solutions, the airport provides scenario-specific solutions for operations control, security, and services. The airport needs only one map for operations and one network for security. From check-in to boarding, passengers need to present their passports only once.
The airport uses Huawei's AI platforms to collect, analyze, and measure massive amounts of data, increasing the ratio of on-time departures of flights to 88 percent. With intelligent gate assignment powered by algorithms, 4 million fewer passengers per year have to take a shuttle bus to board a flight, guaranteeing a better travel experience.
On trips within the city, the intelligent transportation system also saves Li time. During peak hours, the traffic management department uses the command platform to monitor roads in real time, and remotely controls traffic lights based on traffic conditions. Shenzhen Traffic Police worked with Huawei to launch the AI-assisted off-site law enforcement solution, which uses AI image analysis to identify traffic violations.
Shenzhen’s recently-opened metro Line 6 and Line 10 became the city's first metro lines with 5G coverage. The 5G networks provide technical support for the operation management of the metro system and at the same time create a new travel experience for citizens.
Shenzhen is advancing a range of major projects that are vital to a comprehensive transportation system, covering both intercity transportation, such as roads, railways, airports, and ports, and intracity transportation, including buses and subways. Built on Huawei's technology, Shenzhen's smart transportation project is taking a top-down approach to establishing an intelligent, effective transportation system that utilizes video cloud, big data, and AI.
Smarter campus: Rolling out Wi-Fi 6 campus networks
The University Town of Shenzhen (UTSZ) teamed up with Huawei to launch Wi-Fi 6 wireless campus networks. As part of their partnership, Huawei provided an industry-leading one-stop management center, which uses AC controllers, CampusInsight, CIS, and other core components for automated network deployment across UTSZ.
"Having Wi-Fi 6 technology across the university town has greatly benefited the work, study, and lives of everyone here, teachers and students alike," said Liu Ying, Director of UTSZ's Management Office.
With Wi-Fi 6, 1,000-seat auditoriums can provide network coverage and mobile data, even when filled to capacity, and support high-quality video streaming and Internet access. In classrooms, teachers can interact remotely with students through video or appear in class virtually using VR technology. Wi-Fi 6 also helps locate valuable assets in labs to ensure equipment security, and works with intelligent trolleys in the library to automatically keep track of books.
In addition to upgrading its wireless campus networks, UTSZ has increased the bandwidth of wired campus networks to 10 Gbps and backbone networks to 100 Gbps. That means UTSZ has established a high-performance physical network for several dedicated virtual networks covering dorm life, teaching, scientific research, safety protection, and the Internet of Things. According to Liu, digital technology has increased teacher-student interaction by 40 percent and research simulation efficiency by 30 percent. At the same time, 60 percent fewer O&M staff are required and energy consumption has been cut by 30 percent.
Using Huawei's safe campus solutions, data from 139 kindergartens and over 5,000 cameras in Luohu District is sent to Shenzhen Municipal Education Bureau. To ensure the safety of children, these cameras are connected to the smart campus safety operations and control platform and the district education bureau platform.
Easier healthcare services: Improving quality of life
Shenzhen Third People's Hospital was the designated referral hospital for COVID-19 patients in the city. Liu Lei, the head of the hospital, says that Zhong Nanshan, academician from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, visited the hospital while he was researching the virus after the outbreak of the epidemic. Since then, Liu has been in numerous meetings with Zhong and many other experts to discuss the latest developments and explore possible response plans using a Huawei teleconference system.
Shenzhen actively promoted Internet+ healthcare services in the fight against COVID-19, said Luo Lexuan, Director of Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission. Many hospitals in Shenzhen can now provide online consulting services and 22 have obtained an Internet hospital license to provide further consultation services for common and chronic diseases. The Shenzhen government also encourages the development of personalized services like online drug deliveries, Internet+ medical care, and online home doctors, giving citizens faster and easier access to medical services without leaving their homes.
Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission has worked to optimize both medical hardware and software over recent years. In addition to building an information-based healthcare system and Internet hospitals, the Commission also provided smart healthcare services to residents and promoted the application of health QR codes in medical institutions across the city. These efforts significantly reduce the time it takes residents to see a doctor.
Different hospitals and community health service centers share medical examination and imaging results, so that residents don't need to go back and forth between different institutions.
Huazhong University of Science and Technology Union Shenzhen Hospital launched a 3D medical imaging system powered by Huawei's ICT infrastructure, helping doctors to clearly explain health status to patients.
A total of 89 community health service centers and five hospitals in Shenzhen’s Nanshan district can now share data about doctors and patients, make referrals, share test results, and conduct remote expert consultations.
Despite being a young city, Shenzhen is a pioneer in building smart cities. "Huawei is based in Shenzhen and will continue to move forward with the city in building a smart Shenzhen with a digital government, economy, and society," said Peng Zhongyang, Huawei Director and President of Enterprise BG. "Huawei aims to help Shenzhen become a model of new-style smart cities, and a benchmark for modern cities."
