Shanghai invests in being 'smarter'
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Shanghai will become a "smart city" by the end of 2015 as part of the 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015) through investment in faster broadband and other information technology infrastructure, city officials said at a forum over the weekend.
The plan starting this year for local IT infrastructure is being drafted and will be released in the first quarter of the year, officials said during the forum.
"We did well in the 11th Five Year Plan and we hope that Shanghai's IT and smart technology will be in line with developed countries," said He Shouchang, vice director of the Shanghai Information Technology Expert Committee.
By the end of 2010, Shanghai's IT industry revenue was 900 billion yuan (US$136.6 billion), compared with 500 billion yuan five years ago.
Internet penetration rate reached 68 percent from 45 percent five years ago. By 2010, Shanghai's mobile phone penetration rate was 110 percent, which meant many people had two or more handsets.
The local e-commerce trading volume was 360 billion yuan, Liu Jian, vice director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, told the forum on Saturday.
To build itself into a "smart city," Shanghai will invest in 40 projects in 10 categories over the next five years, covering cloud computing and supercomputer sectors, He said.
Cloud computing, widely used by top technology companies such as Google and Apple, is Internet-based computing in which shared servers provide resources, software and information to computers and other devices.
Shanghai, which plans to invest several hundred million yuan in IT in the future, is one of five cities in China chosen to develop cloud computing as a national policy.
Meanwhile, Shanghai plans to make home broadband 10 times faster and establish a citywide mobile broadband network, with more 3G base stations and a next-generation broadcasting network by 2012, according to local telecommunications carriers.
Shanghai has also established an industrial zone for the "Internet of Things," which refers to wireless connections among various devices, in the Pudong New Area.
"We are in negotiation with Hangzhou to establish an Internet of Things center for the Yangtze River Delta," said Huang Jinwei, vice director of the Shanghai Pudong Internet of Things Association.
Internet of Things is widely used in China Mobile's transport and mobile payment applications, said Li Ping, a China Mobile marketing official based in Shanghai.
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