City shoring up to become international data harbor

Shanghai is speeding up its digital transformation strategy by developing core technologies like 5G and artificial intelligence (AI), boosting digital urban management and applications and establishing itself as an international data harbor, Shanghai Daily learned on Friday. 

In 2021, Shanghai’s digital economy revenue is expected to top 500 billion yuan (US$79.4 billion), with digital transformations in six core industries — information technology, automotive, advanced devices, new materials, health care and fashion. 

The city will also build more than 40,000 5G base stations and over 200,000 Internet data center racks to improve the local information infrastructure. About 50,000 companies will adopt cloud services for the first time while about 40 intelligent factories will be built in the city. 

Local residents are expected to directly benefit from the digital wave. 

Altogether 11 applications, which directly link people’s daily lives, will debut in Shanghai this year. More than 70 percent civil functions can be accessed through Online-Offline Shanghai, an official e-government platform.

This week, top city leaders including Party Secretary Li Qiang and Mayor Gong Zheng have been visiting local information infrastructure organizations to promote the strategy.

Shanghai will conduct in-depth research on AI development, attract more leading companies and talent, create an industrial innovation ecology and better serve the national strategy, Gong said.

The city will be home to five world-class data enterprises capable of cross-border data circulation, and 30 innovation firms related to data analysis and circulation.