Lessons from Singapore for Chinese Smart Cities
China is building the world’s largest number of smart cities and investing heavily in artificial intelligence-based systems to increase urban efficiency. A smart city initiative called PATH (by Chinese tech giants Ping An, Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei) was launched at the recently held Smart City Expo in Shenzhen. Speaking from the experience of developing Singapore at the China-Singapore Forum 2018, the city’s former master planner Liu Thai Ker asserts that putting blind faith in technology and its role is risky. Technology does not replace planning but adds to operation and efficiency of cities. Acknowledging the shortcomings and challenges, the Chinese panelists added that one of the biggest challenges is lack of integration between policies, functions and data. In addition, a core concept and mechanisms for smart city development in China is needed. Read more..
