China's 'Smart Cities' to Number 500 Before End of 2017

More than 500 Chinese cities have started or are expected to start their "smart-city" transformations until the end of 2017. Currently, a total of 290 cities have initiated smart-city pilot projects, and more than 300 cities have signed smart-city construction agreements with IT companies, telecommunications companies and further upstream and downstream industries. For example, the Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo Highway has become China's first "internet highway", based on its cooperation with mobile payment service provider Alipay and China Guangfa Bank. With more than 40,000 vehicles streaming across the highway every day, it takes a long time for drivers to pay tolls. Through smart-city applications like mobile payments, the time consumed paying toll fees has been greatly reduced. To the article...