A three-year action plan identifies key areas for city's intelligent development

Internet of things technology and connected services are being extensively used in the city of Wuxi in East China's Jiangsu province, to reinforce its position as one of the country's smartest cities.

"We have just launched a three-year action plan to establish a smart city and will soon implement a group of projects in key areas such as transportation, environmental protection and healthcare to make the city a better place to live in," said Li Xiaomin, Party chief of Wuxi.

"We will continue to boost the IoT industry with new ideas and new measures, to make Wuxi a smarter city," Li said.

The city ranked 17th among the world's top 20 smart cities this year and was the highest-ranked city in China, according to a report released in March by Juniper Research, a digital market research, forecasting and consultancy organization.

The ranking focused on four areas - mobility, health, safety and productivity in order to find out how technologies such as connected sensors and metering devices are able to improve public infrastructure and services, and improve the lives of local residents.

The government of Wuxi first led the country in developing its IoT industry in 2010 and has since created China's first industrial cluster with intelligent sensors, which focuses on research into sensing chips and the design of integrated circuits.

Backed by its strong development capability, Wuxi has accumulatively rolled out more than 300 pilot projects, including 21 State-level key programs, to provide intelligent solutions and modes of operation to better serve the city, Li noted.

According to official figures, the city's IoT industry produced sales revenue of more than 243 billion yuan ($35.5 billion) in 2017, accounting for nearly half the industry's total in the province and one-quarter of the country's total in the sector.

Wang Jinjian, vice-mayor of Wuxi and Party chief of the city's Xinwu district, said 10,000 sensors have been installed across the metropolis to collect and analyze data to improve urban management, especially in the sectors of water conservation, transportation, environment and education.

For example, the application of such sensors in transportation can provide automated control of the traffic light network based on real-time traffic information, as well as being used to detect air and water quality and give out warnings when pollution occurs, Wang said.

Xinwu district, which is home to the city's high-tech zone, contributed nearly 60 percent of Wuxi's total IoT industry revenue, Wang said.

According to the city's three-year action plan for smart city construction, which was released in August, Wuxi will maintain its leading position in the country and will reach an internationally advanced level by the end of 2020.

The local government will improve the efficiency of its big data applications and build a big data center that will comprise five databases on population, corporations, natural resources and geographical information, e-licenses and certificates as well as public credit information.

The revenue from the IoT industry in Wuxi is projected to achieve an annual growth rate of 18 percent and the income from software and information services will grow by at least 15 percent year-on-year, the plan indicates.

The World IoT Exposition, a major annual event of the IoT industry that was first held in Wuxi in 2016, will run from Sept 15 to 18 this year.