foundation — a platform that is agile , innovative , secure , and collaborative . Meanwhile , Smart City services require elasticity , agility , and security so using a cloud platform is optimal . This is why Huawei advocates the ‘ cloud-first ’ strategy . This strategy entails Government and enterprise customers formulating cloudification plans as early as possible to gradually migrate existing applications to the cloud . They can then innovate cloud-native applications , applying the strengths of the cloud environment .
Governments around the world are busy migrating Government services to the cloud . For example , last year the Singapore Government announced a five-year cloud migration plan and signed contracts worth more than USD620 million to move more services to the cloud . Thailand and South Africa have also launched e-Government cloud projects to aggregate information across Government departments — saving time and resources , slashing infrastructure costs , improving Government efficiency , and ensuring data security and reliability .
When building a Smart City , the key is to think big but start on a small scale . The process begins with co-ordinated planning and creating a unified blueprint , before finding methods of implementation appropriate to the city ’ s management system and stage of development .
In many developing countries , building ‘ smart new towns ’— new towns or cities that are located next to established metropolitan cities — is an effective way to tackle the prominent urbanisation problems of big cities , such as traffic congestion and explosive population growth . As well as addressing these issues , constructing these smart new towns can also drive digital economic development as they are well suited to the use of digital technologies . Smart new towns can also serve as pilot projects for many Governments in the initial stage of Smart City construction .
In some smart new town construction projects in the Middle East and Africa , Huawei has helped customers build infrastructures such as urban networks , Government clouds , big data platforms , and IoT . The company has also worked with ecosystem partners to provide lightweight intelligent applications such as smart lighting , smart parking , smart dustbins , smart traffic management , and smart crowd management .
How We Can Build Smarter Cities ( Huawei )
By 2025 , there will be 103 robots working alongside every 10,000 manufacturing workers , 97 % of large enterprises will use Artificial Intelligence ( AI ), 85 % of enterprise applications will be on the cloud and 58 % of the world ’ s population will have access to 5G services . These forecasts come from Huawei Global Industry Vision ( GIV ) 2025 , and they reflect Huawei ’ s perspective on the role of the ICT industry in an intelligent world as well as the opportunities that are involved .
Looking at the present , digital technologies and intelligent capabilities are adopted in all walks of life around the world . As this trend continues , the rapid development of 5G and AI technologies , the rise of human-machine collaboration , and the development of a symbiotic economy in which natural ecosystems and human activity benefit each other , will change the way people communicate , work , and live .
Policymakers and industry leaders around the world have realised that digital technologies can help advance social and economic development . Eager to seize such opportunities for growth , countries around the world are outlining ambitious digital strategies . This trend is typified by the likes of the UK ’ s ‘ Government as a Platform ’, South Korea ’ s U-City Plan , Japan ’ s Smart Society 5.0 , Singapore ’ s Smart Nation 2025 , and China ’ s New Infrastructure programme . Looking at the bigger picture , more than 170 countries have announced digital strategies , over 50 have published AI strategies , and upwards of 1,000 cities have released Smart City strategies .
A shift toward improving efficiencies with technology to accelerate cities ’ digital transformation has built up momentum . City managers , solution providers , and city service operators should embrace changes and apply digital technologies to build the living spaces of the future .
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