INGENIEUR
residents under an architecture that bases smart
cities on AI and big data.
Huawei helped TEDA design an AI-based
1+4+N solution, comprising one IOC, four AI
platforms, and multiple applications. Huawei’s
IOC functions like a city brain. The IOC processes,
communicates, and mines data collected about
the Government, enterprises, residents, Internet,
and IoT. AI technology then enables deep analysis
by this brain.
The IOC co-ordinates closely with the four AI
platforms to support services such as Residents’
Voices, Sensing the City, Healthcare in the
Community, and Enterprise Services. Applications
are based on the IOC and four platforms to
develop a happiness index that measures safety,
beauty, convenience, harmony, civility, and vitality,
with the aim of improving life.
Qingdao: Land digitalisation for smart
agriculture
China has just 120 million hectares of arable
land and imports more than 50% of its food. The
country also has 100 million hectares of saline-
alkali land, of which between 13 and 20 million
hectares has the potential to be transformed into
fertile land to produce more grain. Seawater rice
(salt-tolerant rice) can be planted on saline-alkali
land, making it fertile land.
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Led by the scholar Yuan Longping, the
seawater rice strain was developed by the Qingdao
Seawater Rice R&D Centre, yielding in tests 9.3
tons per hectare in China and 7.5 tons per hectare
in the Dubai desert. Yuan and his team want to
transform around 6.7 million hectares of saline-
alkali land into fertile land within eight years.
This would boost China’s grain production by 30
billion tons a year and feed 80 million people -
equivalent to a medium-sized European country
and the number by which the population of China
will increase over the next 20 years.
Soil digitalisation based on Huawei’s IoT system
plays a vital role in the miracle of seawater rice
cultivation. Sensors on or under the ground collect
information such as illumination, temperature, and
salinity/alkalinity, which is then sent to Huawei’s
cloud big data centre over an eLTE network.
Then, suggestions on recommended pesticides,
directional fertilisation, and pest and disease
control are produced by the AI system, which
in combination with expert diagnosis, helps to
improve rice planting on the saline-alkali land and
increase yields.
Yuan’s team and Huawei have jointly planned
and developed a fertile soil platform for smart
agriculture, which is helping to move agriculture
into the fourth of four development stages:
In the agriculture 1.0 period, everything relies
on manual labour. Agriculture 2.0 is the use of
agricultural machinery. Agriculture 3.0 is fully