The 2019 Shenzhen Smart City Forum with International Friendship Cities opened last Tuesday with the theme "ushering in a bright future for smart cities". The forum brings together Shenzhen officials, Huawei executives and smart city experts, UN-Habitat experts and scholars, delegates from cities around the world with smart city experience, as well as high-tech enterprises to share their latest development concepts and practices. The forum aims to promote communication and cooperation in building smart, digital cities. Ai Xuefeng, Deputy Mayor of Shenzhen, hosted the opening ceremony with Wang Weizhong, Secretary of the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee, Xie Yuan, Deputy Chair of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and Frank Ross, Lord Provost of Edinburgh speaking at the forum's opening. Guest speakers included Guo Ping, Rotating Chairman of Huawei; Ugo Valenti, CEO of Smart City Expo World Congress; and Rui Costa dos Santos, Governor of the State of Bahia, Brazil. Wang Weizhong, Secretary of the CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee, delivered a welcome speech: "This year witnesses the 70th anniversary of Peoople's Republic of China, and also 40 years since the establishment of Shenzhen city. Shenzhen reflects the historical achievements China has made, serving as a window to display China to the world. We hope to make more friends with an open heart taking the opportunity of this forum, and together contribute wisdom and power for a common human community." "Huawei is dedicated to building a smart city digital foundation that enables integrating, exploring, analyzing, and sharing data, by using ubiquitous connectivity, a digital platform, and pervasive intelligence," said Guo Ping in a speech entitled ‘Building a Maslow Model for Smart Cities'. "More importantly, we develop a digital brain for cities in hand with application partners, building a common ecosystem with mutual advantages. This brain will provide advanced ways to help cities make informed development decisions and will allow e-government, transportation, and policing domains to go digital. In doing so, we hope to build smart cities featuring smart administration, more benefits for residents, and prosperous industry development." In his speech ‘A New World of Smart Cities', Ugo Valenti said: "Innovative technologies, including 5G, IoT, AI, and cloud, are disruptively renovating how cities are governed and managed. By nurturing Public-Private-People Partnerships, a co-creation model among government, corporations, and citizens, smart cities will facilitate a more open decision-making process, and bring a people-centric new world." The highlight of the opening ceremony was a high-end dialogue. It attracted attendees from government departments, enterprises, and the academic community. The panel explored emerging technologies, how to construct big-data-based city ICT infrastructure to safeguard public security and order, and how to enhance modern city governance, public welfare, and economy by leveraging digital services and a disruptive digital brain. The result will be better smart cities with active smart economies. "The usage of digital technology has become one of the criteria to assess a city's intelligence level. Future smart cities will have five new infrastructural platforms, namely cloud, IoT, data lake, AI, and a video surveillance network. These five platforms will form a foundation for us to achieve ubiquitous connectivity, realize pervasive intelligence, and streamline heterogeneous ICT systems. Huawei uses its cloud as the basis to integrate various new ICT technologies, such as AI, IoT, big data, converged communications, video, and GIS, to build a comprehensive digital platform," said Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise BG. "This platform provides technical enablement for government and enterprise customers, helping them easily cope with complicated technical issues. In addition, Huawei built 12 OpenLabs around the globe to conduct customer-oriented joint innovation with partners. Building a smart city is a long and constantly evolving process. Based on Huawei's digital platform, cities will be like organic life. New applications will emerge and grow through iteration, and eventually achieve overall prosperity," Yan Lida noted. "The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals include one on sustainable cities and communities. We hope to drive the realization of SDG through smart city endeavors with confidence. We are to face the challenge from smart city construction, but also embrace its unlimited potential. From the perspective of the UN, international cooperation is significant. We see a very good platform here today for cities to share experience," said Atsushi Koresawa, Director for UN-Habitat Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. This event is hosted by Shenzhen Municipal People's Government and organized by Shenzhen Foreign Affairs Office. As a co-organizer, Huawei is a global leading Smart City and Safe City solution provider. Huawei has developed city digital platform, digital brain, and city IoT solutions leveraging new ICT technologies, such as IoT, big data, video cloud, converged communications, GIS, and AI. Together with ecosystem partners, Huawei is drawing a blueprint for smart cities. Huawei Smart City and Safe City solutions have served more than 700 cities in over 100 countries, helping to promote local security and social and economic development. — SG
