IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

China's rapid deployment of new technologies and desire to develop artificial intelligence (AI) will help lead the smart city development, experts said the other day.

Senior information technology experts and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley shared their opinions on China's smart city development and application at a seminar held by the US-Asia Technology Management Center and Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

In less than 10 seconds, Zhou Bin, a resident in Fuzhou city, southeast China's Fujian Province, can access his social security and provident fund accounts on his cell phone.

"In the past, you had to find different official websites for different formalities and also apply for the verification code via your cell phone every time you log in," said Zhou.

Weiter erklärte Cao, dass heute sowohl von der Zentralregierung als auch von über 80 Prozent der lokalen Regierungen und Regierungsbehörden ab Kreisebene aufwärts Webseiten für E-Government eröffnet wurden.

Assistant Director in the E-Government Department Grace Hiwa said several ICT components to be implemented in a period of about four to five years will include the expansion of connectivity to 29 districts across the country.

According to the paper, titled "The Internet in China", 75 central and state organs, 32 provincial governments and 333 prefectural governments and over 80 percent county-level governments had set up their websites, providing various online services to facilitate people's work and life.

The annual report by the E-Government Research Center under the China Academy of Governance stated that the country has 176,714 government microblog accounts as of December 20, 2012, an increase of almost 2.5 times from the previous year.

Some 113,382 of these accounts are run by Communist Party of China committees, legislatures, governments, political advisors, Party disciplinary watchdogs as well as judicial and prosecutorial agencies and government-sponsored institutions.

The experts made the statement during a forum yesterday, organized by the Foundation of Taiwan Medical Development.

During the news conference, a demonstration was held to showcase how cloud computing may have medical applications: databases of health and medical records of different races of people were uploaded to the Internet for download by hospitals, which can then design preventive care programs based on these databases.

China ist drauf und dran, im Internet die USA als weltweite Nummer eins abzulösen. Wie aus einer von China Tech News veröffentlichten Untersuchung von Morgan Stanley hervorgeht, hat die Zahl der Webuser im Reich der Mitte Ende des Vorjahres 80 Millionen erreicht. Damit liegt das Riesenreich weltweit bereits auf Platz zwei und muss sich nur den USA geschlagen geben.

China highly values artificial intelligence (AI) development and injects big in developing a new generation of AI technologies, an official from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) said at Tuesday's press conference.

China has initiated two batches of key projects on new generation AI technologies, with the investment amounting to 1 billion yuan (about 140.7 million U.S. dollars), said Qin Yong, director-general of the Department of High and New Technology of the MOST.

Imagine your daily routine being entirely dependent on a smart phone app. Leaving your home, taking the subway, going to work, entering cafes, restaurants and shopping malls — each move, dictated by the color shown on your screen. Green: you're free to proceed. Amber or Red: you're barred from entry.

This has been the reality for hundreds of millions of people in China since midway through the coronavirus crisis — and it could yet stay that way for the foreseeable future, as the country battles to recover from it.

Since 2012, China has embraced the concept of “smart cities” in a bid to improve governance and urban officials’ decision-making, but more tech isn't always the answer.

The concept of a “smart” city — in which digital technologies like data are collected and used to improve urban planning and resident well-being — can be traced back to at least the 1970s, with the publication of the first urban big data project: “A Cluster Analysis of Los Angeles.”

When you come across a fresh idea, the first thing that comes to your mind is “Eh, this is too good to be true!” and then boom! Its executed perfectly. One such example, is the AI-powered glasses which detect people with fever, one of the primary symptoms of the deadly COVID-19.

AI has proven to be beneficial in the past in quite a lot of sectors spanning from surveillance to aiding the military in the battlefield. This time around AI is contributing to the field of epidemiology.

Compared with the US, UK, Germany, and India, a smaller proportion of China's papers are on machine learning, natural language processing, and robotics

The opening scene of a brief online documentary by Chinese state-run media channel CGTN shows jaywalkers in Shenzhen getting captured on video, identified, and then shamed publicly in real-time. The report is supposed to highlight the country’s prowess in artificial intelligence, yet it reveals a lesser-known truth: China’s AI isn’t so much a tool of world domination as a narrowly deployed means of domestic control.

The white paper, released by the State Council Information Office, introduced facts of the development and use of the Internet in China, and elaborated on the country's basic policies on the Internet.

The programme will see patients use interactive kiosks and remote health monitoring devices in villages and community hospitals across Shandong to record health information and have it instantly transmitted to their healthcare provider.

The project is a partnership between Canada-based Ideal Life, which provides mobile health and wellness systems, and China’s Shandong NovaTech Biological Pharmaceutical, a pharmaceutical manufacturer and medical products distribution network in China.

“China’s new government has vowed to ‘shed sunlight’ on its activities, and has slowly started down the path of providing open government data on a variety of subjects and at different levels of operation,” wrote Gregory Curtin, Founder of Civic Resource Group, in the Future of Government Smart Toolbox report.

China verfügt weltweit über das umfassendste System zur Zensur von Websites und Inhalten im Internet. Beinahe 50.000 Websites sind für User im Reich der Mitte unzugänglich. Manche Themenbereiche wie z.B. Demokratisierung, Tibet und Taiwan sind nahezu vollständig blockiert. Das geht aus einer aktuellen Studie der Harvard Law School hervor. Diese bestätigt China bei seiner Internetpolitik durchaus Erfolge. Demnach sei für die chinesischen Behörden das Internet leichter zu kontrollieren als andere Kommunikationsformen wie Telefon, Fax und Briefe. Nur die entschlossensten und geschicktesten User schaffen es, die Filtersysteme der Zensur zu umgehen.