Joint venture to boost smart city development

Oriental Pearl and China Electronics Technology Group have established a joint venture for smart city and intelligent urban management services for Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta region, Shanghai-listed Oriental Pearl said on Thursday.

The joint venture will establish a “platform-based data intelligence service“ for Shanghai and build the city as a “sample of digital China infrastructure construction.”

No details of investment figures or share structure were revealed at the conference to announce the project. 

The joint venture will adopt the latest technologies such as 5G, IoT and AI, both sides said. 

The two state-owned firms also announced founding a next-generation information infrastructure ecosystem alliance, with the first batch of members including China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Tencent, Alibaba Cloud and Baidu.

By June, Shanghai had deployed a total of nearly 500,000 intelligent “neutron nodes” such as sensors and cameras, covering more than several dozen applications such as fire protection, market supervision, elevator operation inspection, home care and garbage disposal, said Wu Jincheng, director of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization, during the conference.

Wang Jianjun, chairman of the Oriental Pearl, said this was a strategic expansion for Oriental Pearl for business upgrading and to meet the requirements of the national and Yangtze River Delta’s digital infrastructure construction.

Meanwhile, China is to build a new national broadcasting network company with registered capital of over 100 billion yuan (US$14.3 billion) with shareholders of state-run China Broadcasting and its listed subsidiaries, including Oriental Pearl, as well as new shareholder Alibaba, according to several listed firms.