Shanghai's e-governance platform highlighted at WAIC
A foreign speaker shares the latest smart city practices via video at the International AI City Forum today.
Shanghai's unified e-governance platform was showcased at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2021 today as one of the world's best smart city governance practices.
The Government Online-Offline Shanghai portal, which offers more than 3,000 online approvals, was promoted at WAIC.
About 60 government departments have offered 3,197 services on the one-stop platform. Since the platform was initiated in 2018, more than 150 million cases have been handled online, or about 134,000 cases every day, said Zhu Junwei, deputy director of the Shanghai Big Data Center.
"Over 60 percent of government issues, for both companies and individuals, have been processed through the platform as of May," Zhu said. "Customers don't need to meet any service staff in person but can finish their applications online."
Wu Zhiqiang, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chancellor of the Shanghai Smart City Development Institute
The forum, themed "AI Empowering Digital Government," has attracted officials from global cities such as Espoo (Finland), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Ludwigsburg (Germany) and Manchester (England). They shared their smart urban management solutions on site or through video.
The Government Online-Offline Shanghai platform has been listed as one of the best urban governance cases by the United Nations, said Wu Zhiqiang, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chancellor of the Shanghai Smart City Development Institute, one of the organizers of the forum.
Shanghai was named the world's "smartest city" at the Smart City Expo World Congress in 2020, becoming the first Chinese city to win the award.
"Artificial intelligence will become the new engine to drive the more beautiful life and more efficient urban governance of global cities in the next decade," Wu told the forum. He noted safety and humanistic care are the two key bottom lines during the development of AI.
Zhu said the COVID-19 pandemic has driven the popularity of the integrated service platform, especially during the lockdown.
An international version of the platform was launched in November to meet the rising demand of local expats. The platform now has more than 50 million users and 14 million active users every month. Some 400,000 expats have also begun using the platform, Zhu said.
Officials share their smart city solutions on the sideline of the forum.
