Smart city takes roads to the future

Cloud metropolis

The intelligent traffic system in Xiong'an is evidence that the area is becoming a digital and smart city.

The Xiong'an Urban Computing Center is just one of many facilities providing smart solutions to the city's overall management, including transportation, water-related affairs, and energy and ecological governance.

Supercomputing, cloud and edge computing facilities at the center provide networking and storage provisions for big data, blockchain and the internet of things.

A metropolis on the cloud is complementing the physical city of Xiong'an, providing important support for construction of a smart city.

Liu Xin, general manager of China Xiong'an Group's Digital City Co, told China Central Television that if there is an accident at crossroads where there are natural gas or water pipelines, data can be quickly gathered on this underground infrastructure.

"With the data collected by the sensors, we can pinpoint the location of the incident and take appropriate measures," Liu said.

By 2035, the Xiong'an Urban Computing Center, which is located in Rongdong, will have some 3,600 cabinets housing servers to meet the city's computing demand, the CCTV report said.

Xiong'an also boasts many other intelligent features for use in a number of different fields.

At an intelligent charging space in the Jucun Urban Smart Energy Fusion Station, robots move efficiently to connect electric vehicles to charging points.

Qu Feng, a staff member at State Grid Xiong'an New Area Power Supply Co, said the station, which covers 1,618 square meters, is equipped with three-dimensional parking facilities that can accommodate up to 46 vehicles for simultaneous parking and charging.

"This is the first unmanned charging station in China for automatic parking and charging," Qu said, adding that the station is also the first in the country to use the digital RMB.

Yu Zewen, deputy general manager at Beijing Pulong Technology Co, which builds rail-mounted inspection robots, said, "We relocated to Xiong'an, as we have strong confidence in the region's development."

In 2019, the company became one of the first privately owned enterprises to relocate to the new area from Beijing.

Yu said the company's primary business is related to electricity, but after arriving in Xiong'an, it started to research and develop robots, transforming into a startup.

"The area's favorable policies and encouraging environment for smart development led us to develop our advanced inspection robot for use in tunnels and corridors," Yu said.