How will smart cities change our future life? How can Asian countries cooperate in this field? Government officials, enterprise leaders and scholars from Asian countries gathered in Guangzhou’s Nansha on November 27 and shed light into the topic ‘technology innovation and smart city’ at the Asia Youth Leaders Forum.

Kashif Sharif, Associate Professor of Beijing Institute of Technology

A smart city is a city that utilized all of the technologies such as AI, block-chain and 5G to provide more efficient and easier services to people, according to Kashif Sharif, Associate Professor of Beijing Institute of Technology and guest presenter of the forum.

He took the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as an example, saying that “Guangdong cities, Hong Kong and Macao could be smart by using different technologies but they can be super smart if they link all these cities and their technologies together. If so, people can travel seamlessly while such things as virus tracking can also be done equally as seamlessly.”

In term of the data flow between countries, he said it’s possible and very beneficial for all the neighboring countries. But it has to be first standardized and legalized either by the industries themselves or by the governments before providing people with services.

Liu Zhicheng, General Manager of Guangzhou Metro Group

Liu Zhicheng, General Manager of Guangzhou Metro Group, said Guangzhou Metro aims to be ‘smarter’. “Firstly, it means smart manufacturing which is safer, greener and more efficient. Secondly, it means smart travel for passengers through automatic operation, smart safety checks and quick payment. Last but not least, we keep optimizing production efficiency and cost control through cloud platform, IoT and big data technologies.”

Chng Ken Wei, Centre Director (China) at Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore, explained that Singapore has implemented a smart city plan, the iN2015 Masterplan, in 2015. “The plan has three simple goals, that is, to bring citizens a comfortable and happy life, to help enterprises achieve their full potential and to improve efficiency of governance.”

Chng Ken Wei highlighted that the development of smart city would also bring new social problems. “For example, the development of robotics will reduce the demand for jobs such as taxi drivers, factory workers and cleaners while deepening the shortage of high-end talents. It requires lots of training and retaining which we have offered lots of investment and subsidies,” he said.

Muhammad Ammar, Vice Secretary General of Beijing Global Talent Exchange Association

As for talent pool development, Muhammad Ammar, Vice Secretary General of Beijing Global Talent Exchange Association, said there have been more foreigners wanting to study in China and work here after graduation instead of going to the US, Canada and Germany. “For instance, many Pakistani students came to study mechanical engineering, automobile engineering, software engineering. They enter the AI and automobile industries after graduation."

“Many cities have launched platforms to improve foreigner services. I’m impressed by a foreign community center in Shenzhen as it provides amazing services to foreign professionals. I hope there could be more platforms like this, and more relaxed and favorable policies for foreigners to stay and work in China,” said Muhammad Ammar.