For the second year in a row, government officials and C-level executives came together from around the world for an exclusive 3-day interactive conference program in Yinchuan, the premier Smart City capital of China. And Telecom Review team was there to cover this event.
In partnership with the City of Yinchuan and ZTEsoft, TM Forum Smart City InFocus 2016 brought together over 800 C-level executives and government officials from across the global smart city ecosystem to network, learn and exchange ideas. This year's event looked at building sustainable smart cities and offering end-to-end smart services for citizens.
Since the official $500 million cooperation agreement between the Yinchuan government and ZTEsoft (the software subsidiary of Chinese telecoms equipment manufacturer ZTE), the city of Yinchuan headed to become the most advanced Smart city in China. Under the terms of the cooperation agreement, 13 subsystems will be implemented during the course of three years, featuring a unified top design, scientific architecture, innovative business model, an operation and maintenance (O&M) platform and rich application functionality.
One of the key projects was the big data center being deployed in the city of Yinchuan that will provide big data-based support and services for government affairs management, public services, economic development, gaming and banking, among other sectors. The first phase of the big data center project requires an investment of CNY 300 million ($47.2 million) and stipulates the deployment of 1,000 cabinets that can carry 20,000 servers and provide a storage capacity of 1.1 EB. The second phase of the initiative stipulates the deployment of 4,000 cabinets which will be able to carry 80,000 servers.
The three-day conference comprised of Smart Yinchuan city tour and VIP dinner on the first day. Then on the second day, the conference program started, featuring 30+ exclusive international keynote speakers, panel discussions and interactive roundtable discussions. The conference program continued on the final day, followed by catalyst (proof-of-concept) tours and networking cocktail reception.
As for the key conference topics, it included: Creating engaged and collaborative cities, building the Smart City foundation, creating smarter cities with big data and analytics, Greenfield Smart City development, smart mobility, smart energy and smart health.