Construction of 'smart' Xiongan boosts local digital economy

(ECNS) -- Known as the "city of the future", Xiongan New Area in north China's Hebei Province has become increasingly "smart" as digitalization has been promoted and artificial intelligence (AI) extensively applied to urban construction.

Li Yu, a staff member of the Digital City Construction Leading Group Office of Xiongan New Area, said that intelligent connected vehicles will gradually replace traditional buses locally. 

According to Li, smart vending vehicles, unmanned logistics vehicles, self-driving cleaning vehicles, unmanned patrol vehicles and other autonomous vehicles, involving various aspects of dailylife, will be seen in residential communities of Xiongan, allowed people to share in the fruits of smart city construction.

Rongdong district is the first built in Xiongan New Area. Now, all roads in the district have been equiped with multi-functional poles, which integrate cameras, radars, 5G network, edge nodes and other intelligent devices, comprising the longest and largest smart road cluster in the country and assisting the development of digital transportation and the Cooperative Vehicle Infrastructure System(CVIS).

Xiongan Urban Computing Center, called the "city brain" of Xiongan will support the operations of the “digital twin cities”and perform the computing and storage functions for big data, blockchain, the internet of things, AI and VR/AR .

Such ubiquitous intelligent scenes present a microcosm of the efforts Hebei province has made to speed up digital economy development.

Recently, Hebei authorities have prioritized the construction of a digital economy powerhouse, a practice of Chinese modernization in the province.

In recent years, the province has vigorously implemented digital industrialization and industrial digitalization to further promote deep integration of the digital economy and real economy, and also consistently develop new industries and forms of business to accelerate the development of digital economy.

According to data released at the press conference of the 2022 China International Digital Economy Expo, the digital economy scale of Hebei surged 15.1 percent year on year to 1.39 trillion yuan ($195 billion) in 2021, accounting for 34.4% of the province's GDP. 

To date, the cumulative investment in 5G, Xiongan urban computing center, digital roads and other smart infrastructure in Xiongan has exceeded 10 billion yuan, while the ratio of digital infrastructure in the newly-build district is more than 90 percent. The pace of digital city construction in Xiongan is accelerating.