Urbanization is one of the most important socioeconomic phenomena in the world today. About 50% of the world's population currently lives in cities, and as urbanization continues to accelerate, this proportion is expected to exceed 70% by 2050. As the population continues to gather in cities and new metropolises and urban agglomerations are formed one after another, problems such as traffic congestion, environmental deterioration, lack of resources, and decline in residents’ quality of life caused by urbanization have become increasingly prominent. How to achieve sustainable development of cities has become Issues of concern to city managers. In this context, the concept of smart city emerged.
Smart city system
"Smart city" is a new perspective on cities, a new way of thinking about developing cities, and a continuation of digital city construction. It is of great significance in urban planning, management, operation and long-term development. In 2010, IBM officially proposed the vision of "smart cities", hoping to contribute to the urban development of the world and China. After research, IBM believes that cities are composed of six core systems of different types of networks, infrastructure and environment related to the main functions of the city, including: 1. Organization (people), 2. Business/Government Affairs, 3. Transportation, 4. Communications, 5. Water and 6. Energy. These systems are interconnected collaboratively, and the city itself is the macrosystem composed of these systems.
The construction of smart cities is a multi-dimensional and systematic project. Urban planning and information technology planning such as smart cities must be highly integrated. The development of modern cities is driven by digitalization, and the application of leading digital and smart technologies must be considered in the urban planning process. In the same way, when planning smart cities, the development pattern of the city also needs to be considered. Smart cities in the 21st century should make full use of information and communication technology to sense, analyze, and integrate key information of the city's core operating systems, to provide information on people's livelihood, environmental protection, public safety, urban services, and industrial and commercial activities. Only by responding intelligently to various needs can we create a better urban life for mankind.
Empowering smart cities
As the latest generation of wireless communication technology, 5G has had a huge impact on the construction of smart cities with its ultra-high speed, ultra-low latency, and ultra-large connection characteristics. The ubiquitous sensor network based on 5G can deeply integrate the development of people, machines and things, and realize the intelligent connection of everything in smart cities. At the same time, 5G can also be deeply integrated with the new generation of information technology represented by cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things. By using the 5G network, network resources can be flexibly configured according to end-application scenarios to meet the differentiated network needs of smart cities. Therefore, 5G wireless communication technology will become an important capillary supporting urban development and empowering smart cities.
When foreign cities are planning smart cities, they regard network communications as another important infrastructure in building smart cities in addition to physical facilities. Early smart city construction was mainly driven by technology and lacked top-level design and unified planning. At that time, the focus of smart city development was on digital construction, which was supported by urban information infrastructure such as networks and data, and used remote sensing technology, geographic information technology, and global positioning systems to collect and monitor information. However, today's new smart cities have multi-layered requirements for infrastructure such as network bandwidth, coverage and speed. With the arrival of 5G new technology, countries have also begun to actively upgrade communication network construction and promote the construction of smart cities through 5G commercial deployment.
5G communication network resources play an irreplaceable and important role in the infrastructure construction of smart cities. In response to the various challenges in smart city construction, how to provide efficient basic network facilities and connection services while jointly undertaking the development and construction of smart applications with partners in the smart city ecosystem, and building an ecological environment to achieve co-construction and co-governance The new pattern of sharing is an important issue that telecom operators need to consider in the construction of new smart cities in the 5G era.
Achieve collaborative intelligence
The competitive advantage of China's 5G industry lies in independent innovation and open cooperation. Especially in the era of economic globalization, the industries of various countries are deeply integrated. Without extensive and close international cooperation, the pace of 5G will not be so rapid. Over the years, from the Chinese company Huawei opening a 5G wireless network open laboratory in Seoul, South Korea, to China, Russia, and China working together to promote the construction of a new generation of 5G networks, the development of the 5G industry will achieve collaborative intelligence, share a new generation of information technology, and bring benefits to the world. more surprise:
1. Artificial Intelligence
With the intelligent upgrading of residents' lives, urban management, and operation and production, there is a strong demand for new-generation artificial intelligence technologies, products, services, and solutions. 5G can meet the concurrent access requirements of massive smart devices in smart cities, respond to virtual and real interactions between devices at the millisecond level, promote the implementation of multi-scenario applications of artificial intelligence, and truly realize the intelligent connection of all things. Artificial intelligence technology represented by deep learning will be rapidly popularized, promoting scientific decision-making by city managers and improving the wisdom of public services.
2. New IoT terminals and IoT
As the infrastructure of the new generation network, 5G is the cornerstone of the intelligent connection of all things. The wide-connectivity feature of 5G will further enhance the deployment of smart terminals and realize ubiquitous connections between people, people and things, and things and things. Through sensory and IoT methods, we connect and collect various data and information in the city, building a huge peripheral nervous system in the city, providing solid support for the construction of "digital twin cities", and helping city managers to be more efficient, Accurately grasp and manage city information.
3. Big data analysis
Data is an important strategic resource in the future. 5G's large bandwidth and multiple connections enable big data analysis processes such as data collection, data fusion, data modelling, and data mining to extract valuable information from complex and redundant urban data. Intelligent terminal sensors in smart cities will generate a large amount of valuable data. Through big data analysis, they can promptly and effectively assist city managers in scientific management and decision-making.
4. Cloud computing
Through cloud computing technology, physically dispersed computing capabilities can be integrated to achieve the highest efficiency recovery for urban data storage and processing at the lowest cost. Cloud computing has the advantages of elastic computing and on-demand billing, and information resources can be coordinated and shared to the greatest extent through the "cloud". The large bandwidth of 5G will allow cloud computing to store a larger amount of data. The low latency will allow data to be uploaded in a more timely manner. The larger load capacity will allow more devices to connect to the cloud, promote cloud-edge collaboration, and make the business more efficient.
5. Blockchain
5G intelligent connection of all things brings a large amount of end-to-end information exchange, especially information exchange in large-scale business scenarios, which have stricter security requirements. The integration of the underlying distributed ledger technology of blockchain with 5G can be applied to information authentication, address, identification and other management, as well as spectrum resource sharing, etc. It can also change the business model and system architecture of future networks and realize the transformation from an information network to a value network. changes to realize the value of network and information assets.
Unleash urban potential
On June 6, 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued 5G commercial licenses to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Radio and Television. China officially entered the first year of 5G commercial use. With the construction, deployment and commercial use of 5G networks, making good use of the characteristics of 5G networks to empower vertical industries has become one of the most talked about topics in the development of smart cities.
In 2020, Deloitte Technology, Media and Telecommunications Industry joined hands with China Unicom to compile the "5G Empowering Smart Cities White Paper". This white paper examines the development trends of smart cities in the 5G era, focuses on typical application scenarios of 5G in transportation, security, environmental protection, governance and other fields, and proposes the main challenges and implementation paths for smart cities in the current 5G era, as well as the thoughts of operators in promoting the construction of smart cities in the 5G era. Effectively promote the implementation of 5G smart cities across the country.
