Tech giants Alibaba, Huawei put weight behind Hongshan

Big names in China's tech industry, Alibaba and Huawei, have decided to set up new bases in Wuxi's Hongshan, expecting to power the creation of China's first internet of things town.

Plans to construct the Hongshan IoT town in Xinwu district were revealed last November.

Eyeing the industry prospects of Hongshan IoT town, Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, signed a cooperation agreement with the Xinwu district government to construct an IoT platform for the town's smart data system.

Named Feifeng, the platform will provide a data infrastructure for Hongshan town and generate comprehensive solutions for its urban administration using technology that enables big data to be managed and distributed. For instance, it will be able to analyze the flow of traffic at major intersections in the town, changing the timings of the traffic lights to ease congestion and improve efficiency on the roads.

All data from massive mainstream communication protocols and sensors in Hongshan will be accessible via the platform.

Ku Wei, general manager of Alibaba Cloud's IoT division, said the Feifeng platform will be ready by the end of this year, with parts of the platform to be demonstrated during the 2017 World Internet of Things (WIOT) Exposition, to be held in Wuxi from Sept 10 to 13.

"The Feifeng platform will include 500 to 1,000 IoT applications of urban administration in the following three years to ultimately serve the whole of Jiangsu province," said Gui Tao, director of the Xinwu technology and information bureau.

As part of Alibaba's IoT ecosphere strategy, Feifeng platform will also serve as an experimental project for the construction and transformation of the newly-established Xiongan New Area in Hebei province into a smart city.

Another newcomer to Hongshan is Chinese tech developer Huawei, which has joined hands with Chinasoft International to establish the Huawei Hongshan IoT eco-enabling center and Huawei functional cloud platform.

The IoT eco-enabling center is scheduled to open during the 2017 WIOT Exposition. Aggregating the core technologies of Huawei and Chinasoft International, the center will be responsible for IoT solution plan designs, integrated authentication and the incubation of innovation projects, promoting Wuxi's IoT industry development.

The center will provide a platform for IoT innovation projects to "practice" before being officially launched, according to Jiang Wangcheng, president of Huawei's IoT solutions department, which will also provide technical support to Wuxi's IoT product development.

"Wuxi has a very good IoT development environment and platform," said Jiang, adding that Huawei would spare no effort in constructing its IoT eco-enabling center to help Wuxi cultivate its IoT industry.

Yuan Jinxiang, chairman of China Wu Culture Expo Park Construction and Development Co, which operates Hongshan IoT town, said that Alibaba and Huawei will help to attract more quality projects to the town.

gejieru@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/09/2017 page6)