Governments in the Asia-Pacific Region are greatly concerned about the ways to build Smart Cities via new ICT. These ICT technologies –such as Cloud Computing, IoT, Big Data, and Mobility– are effectively resolving the contradictions between human beings and natural resources arising from accelerating urbanization. Huawei is incorporating excellent capabilities and practices of global industry partners into its holistic Smart City solutions.
According to a report from the McKinsey Global Institute, 600 cities contribute 60% of the global GDP, which indicates that cities have become a robust engine for sustainable economic growth. The priority of city development is to provide residents with a safe and livable environment which attracts talent, promotes social and economic development, and bridges the economic gap.
At present, at least 20 countries are considering Smart City construction as part of national strategies, and formulating guidelines on investment priorities, technologies, and services. According to Worldwide Smart City 2016 Top 10 Predictions released by International Data Corporation (IDC), by 2018, 90% of the public fund in the Asia-Pacific Region will be invested to promote social and economic development, bridge the economic gap, and attract talent.
As of 2016, 75% of countries and local governments will use external data, including real-time traffic and crime data.
75% of countries and local governments will use external data by 2016, including real-time traffic and crime data
With increasingly complex global security conditions, local public safety agencies will invest US$20.7 billion in Internet of Things (IoT) solution construction. Meanwhile, for the development of the application-defined economy, 60% of urban mobile applications will be developed by commercial organizations, with relevant data coming from the combination of open and crowd-sourced information. In order to ensure privacy and safety, 90% of cities plan to issue policies on public and private use of drones and sensors.
In 2017, public construction will become the third sector receiving heavy investment, including intelligent lighting and intelligent water services, which will result in substantial commercial value. It is estimated that 50% of automatic alarm reporting, notification, and prediction systems in smart home solutions will be invested by local governments. In large cities, 60% of robots and machine-to-machine communications will be applied to unmanned or semi-automatic vehicles.
In the context of the previous mentioned trends, governments are still confronted with a variety of challenges during Smart City construction:
1. Inefficient data sharing because of information silos
Data is the root of smartness. Smart City is developed using data and information technologies. Only smooth data sharing and exchange can help exploit the full benefits of data. However, data are not shared across government agencies and industries, hindering further construction of smart applications.
2. Insufficient awareness and connectivity due to limited IoT technologies
IoT-based awareness and connectivity keep city managers informed of city operating status. Smartness is impossible without awareness or connectivity. Current IoT technologies cannot meet Smart City construction needs in terms of coverage, interconnection, connectivity, and cost.
Nowadays, governments are greatly concerned about the ways to build Smart Cities via new ICT. These ICT technologies – such as Cloud Computing, IoT, Big Data, and Mobility – are effectively resolving the contradictions between human beings and natural resources arising from accelerating urbanization.
90% of cities plan to issue policies on public and private use of drones and sensors
Cloud and IoT aggregate and share urban information resources. Big Data implements efficient and accurate decision-making, and provides timely, efficient, and intelligent information services for residents, enterprises, and the society as a whole. For instance, a Smart City can use new ICT to fully connect people, information, resources, and services. In the e-Government sector, service-oriented governments can provide online services –such as passport or visa issuing– via websites and mobile applications. As for city management, governments adopt Big Data technology to analyze real-time weather and traffic conditions, predict future changes, and notify citizens of possible meteorological disasters and traffic congestion at an early stage. By doing so, governments can better serve residents and manage cities.
90% of the public fund in the Asia-Pacific Region will be invested to promote social and economic development, bridge the economic gap, and attract talent
Additionally, Huawei has developed the ICT Capability Disclosure Platform, Big Data Support Platform, and Application Enablement Platform to effectively support data exchange and sharing. Furthermore, Huawei’s ‘1+2+1’ IoT Solution offers robust R&D capabilities and a new ICT infrastructure platform featuring Cloud-Pipe-Device collaboration. The solution enables developers to quickly develop services, facilitating ubiquitous awareness and connectivity for Smart City construction.
Huawei Enabler of Smart Cities offers an open, efficient, and eco-friendly data center to lay a solid foundation for the elimination of information silos
The Huawei’s Smart City solution
Huawei’s Smart City solution has been deployed in more than 100 cities across 40 countries. In the Netherlands, Huawei established a joint innovation center with Amsterdam ArenA, and deployed a world-leading wireless network with the largest capacity in the country. Via the network, ArenA and Ajax are able to provide football fans with novel services and an optimum experience. Huawei’s Smart Stadium solution has also been implemented by many famous stadiums in the world, such as Signal Iduna Park and Veltins Arena in Germany and Ibrox in Glasgow, Scotland.
In the Czech Republic, Huawei’s smart street lighting solution intelligently adjusts energy consumption based on environmental awareness, and supports unified lifecycle management of huge numbers of street lamps. Every year, the solution reduces lighting energy consumption by 80% and manual maintenance costs by 90% for every city.
In Singapore, Huawei helped the country quickly deploy a cost-effective, next-generation national broadband network. The flexible and open network accelerates business innovations and fair competition.
In New Zealand, Huawei deployed an ultra-wideband project featuring the fastest fiber coverage among member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), resulting in a sharp increase in fixed network traffic.
In Cameroon, Huawei helped the country plan its national ICT in 2015, proposing to build a national broadband project and data center, facilitating the deployments of Safe City, E-education, and E-Tax applications.
In Saudi Arabia, Huawei built a single urban network accommodating all Smart City applications, including smart transportation, smart park, and smart home.
In the public safety sector, Huawei innovates with its partners –such as Hexagon– to build the world’s first visualized and converged Safe City solution. The solution helps city managers and emergency agencies improve risk awareness, early warning, timely responses, smart decision-making and cross-agency collaboration capabilities. Huawei’s Safe City solution has served more than 400 million people across 100 cities in 40 countries.
In the energy sector, Huawei’s solutions have been widely deployed by more than 160 electric companies from 65 countries. In Nigeria, Huawei helped Ikeja Electric Plc (IE) build a smart power consumption system to increase the number of users with electric meters by 300% and reduce line loss from 45% to 14%. Huawei also deployed an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) solution in Togo, a solar power generation system in Cameroon, and a smart street solution for Smart Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) in the UAE.
In the transportation sector, Cloud Computing, IoT, and Big Data technologies have been widely used. For example, Huawei migrated ticketing services to a public cloud for 12306.cn, the largest train ticket booking platform in China. Using Big Data analytics helps support appropriate ticket marketing, resulting in economic benefits. In the railway industry, a diversity of IoT-based weather, track, and axle temperature sensors are deployed to collect real-time train data. IoT technology will also be used for disaster prevention, freight, and full lifecycle management of resources.In the healthcare sector, Huawei helped Kenya deploy a telemedicine solution to allow easy access to medical services.
Huawei-Global-Practice
Enabling Developers to Quickly Build Smart Cities
Building a better Smart City is a common aspiration of governments, carriers, telecom vendors, application developers, and residents. Smart City is an all-embracing system that cannot be completed by a single player. It requires seamless collaboration of players in all domains.
With a focus on ICT Infrastructure, Huawei uses its ICT Capability Disclosure Platform to offer open capabilities, enabling Huawei’s products to be easily integrated. This helps improve partners’ capabilities. During Smart City construction, Huawei teams up with Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and system integrators to develop innovative Smart City solutions for customers.
One Cloud: Cloud Data Center
Huawei provides a secure cloud data center that’s based on an open architecture. The data center integrates and shares city information resources to improve government service efficiency and decision-making accuracy.
Two Networks: Broadband and Urban IoT
Wired and wireless broadband networks enable ubiquitous broadband coverage that places services at the public’s fingertips.
The Urban IoT network accommodates data services for new industry applications. Huawei soups up IoT with the most lightweight IoT operating system –LiteOS– in addition to a wide range of access gateways. Huawei also is a major contributor to Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) standards organizations.
Three Platforms: ICT Capability Disclosure Platform, Big Data Support Platform, and Application Enablement Platform
The ICT Capability Disclosure Platform provides encapsulated and packaged ICT capabilities so that developers from any company can easily make open interfaces and quickly develop integrated Smart City service applications.
The Big Data Support Platform shares historical and real-time city data with all agencies.
The Application Enablement Platform combines Huawei applications (Big Data processing, security management, and video processing and analysis) with third-party applications — such as a Geographic Information System (GIS), public service, unified identification, and Single Sign-On (SSO).
The result: Fast exchange of data resources, new software, and improved operation and maintenance for Smart City applications.
To better match Smart City needs, Huawei is endeavoring to provide customers and partners with well-focused capabilities. For example, Huawei’s ICT Capability Disclosure Platform provides SDK software to expose Big Data capabilities which then can be invoked by partners.
During Smart City ecosystem construction, Huawei has allied with more than 400 solution partners, including SAP, Hexagon, Esri, Accenture, Schindler, GE, and Honeywell. These partnerships generate a variety of innovative solutions, including Safe City, Industrial Internet, IoEE, Smart Building, Digital Rail, and Smart Grid.
US$20.7 billion will be invested by local public safety agencies in Internet of Things (IoT) solution construction
To drive business innovations and partner enablement, Huawei establishes Openlabs to develop solutions with partners. An Openlab consists of innovation, ISV support, verification, and experience centers. Up to now, Huawei has developed joint solutions at the Suzhou-based Openlab with more than 20 partners. In addition to Suzhou, Huawei has also established more than 10 joint innovation centers in Munich, Mexico, Singapore, Dubai, and Moscow. These innovation centers aggregate global resources to promote Smart City construction.
