UK and China join hands on smart city development

According to figures released by the Chinese Academy of Social Science, by 2018 sixty percent of China’s population will live in cities. At the end of 2013 the figure was 51 percent (about 694 million people). Smart cities will be a vital driver of its urbanization; according to Chinese media, investment of 2 trillion yuan (£208 billion) has been devoted to more than 600 cities nationwide by 2015.

During the State Visit of President Xi to the UK last October, SIN led the visit of a Chinese smart city delegation together with urbanization team, which opened up the strategic collaboration between China and UK on smart cities. At the second China Smart City Innovation Conference held in Jinan last week, I was excited to witness a Memorandum of Understanding signed between China Centre for Urban Development (CCUD) with the Future Cities Catapult. CCUD is the think tank affiliated to the National Development and Reform Commission on Smart Cities and the leading agency on national smart city development.

The agreement built up the strategic partnership between UK-China on smart city development, and it aims at breaking the barriers between government, academia and enterprises through innovative approach. Sir Michael Bear, UK Special Envoy for Sustainable Urbanization attended the conference and expressed his wish of the experience sharing and business collaboration in the future.

The Big Data Smart Planning panel, as one of the most popular sessions of the conference, invited UK enterprise representatives to introduce their experience and approach on smart planning. Mr. Chris Brown, the EU smart city policy advisor, also highlighted the success of UK cities in smart planning among EU smart city development.

In recent years, Chinese government has invested mainly in cloud computing and data infrastructure. A key challenge is how to have enterprise involved and activate the market, while the UK has experience in unlocking the barriers between government and enterprise through innovation platforms. SIN is looking forward to contribute more to the partnership through breaking the barriers and developing innovative solutions.