'Smart' Jing'an primed for IOT devices

In a prelude to the city’s long-term Smart City blueprint more than 500,000 Internet of Things devices, including sensors and monitors used in the transportation, healthcare and retail industries, will be adopted in Jing’an District this year.

After its completion by about 2020, the project will become the new Shanghai “brain” for urban management, yielding an intelligent and comfortable life for residents. Experiences of Jing’an will be used and replicated across the city, Zhang Ying, chief engineer of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization, revealed.

Government agencies, including the commission, the Shanghai Development & Reform Commission, the Jing’an District government and the state-owned Shanghai Data Exchange Corp, are major participants in the project. Telecom carriers, public utility firms, shopping malls, healthcare and transportation security companies will also join in. Meanwhile, overseas firms, including PwC and Amazon, are involved in consultancy and cloud services.

The first phase of IOT device adoption and network construction will cover the whole of Jing’an District, with 500,000 IOT devices in 15 segments, covering community fire alarm security, elevator status tracking, food security, road condition reporting and healthcare card recognition, according to Keven Tang, chief executive of SDE.

Shanghai has “natural advantages” in conducting the data exchange business since as a global finance center it can tap into its advanced information infrastructure and rich talent pool, he said.

China’s online data exchange market is expected to generate a value in excess of 100 billion yuan (US$15.2 billion) by the year 2020, with Shanghai set to play a leading role nationwide.