【COVID-19】智慧城市如何交“疫考”答卷 - 2020-03-10

Authors: Liu Shilin, Bi Xiaohang, Lai Danxin
Source: Study Times
The battle to prevent and control the COVID-19 epidemic is at a critical stage, and it’s time to see how well smart cities are developed in China. Since the pilot program kicked off in 2012, the “smart city” initiative has covered a variety of sectors such as government affairs, transportation, industry, science and technology, education, healthcare, social governance and public services.
In the fight against the epidemic, we see that some smart cities are built better and play an important role. Generally speaking, in recent years, China has been continuously increasing investment to upgrade and revamp urban information infrastructure, with a focus on smart government, smart society and digital economy. Meanwhile, cities have significantly improved information service capabilities, while citizens have become more savvy in information technology. These efforts have played a key role in breaking information barriers during the epidemic, supporting the central government’s decision-making, and improving the workstyles of local governments. They also helped ensure resource allocation, medical care and livelihood guarantee during the extraordinary period.
Smart healthcare. More AI technologies are being developed and introduced in the scientific research field. During the epidemic, various smart healthcare platforms are providing people with health assessment and professional guidance in a timely manner, helping them conduct self-examination online to ease pressure on offline hospitals. Many Internet companies have offered their AI algorithms for free to frontline scientific research institutions in a bid to support viral genome sequencing, new drug development, and protein screening to help shorten the R&D cycles. Researchers are leveraging supercomputing in target discovery, new drug screening, test optimization, as well as pharmacology and toxicology. All these are inseparable from the development of smart healthcare by relevant companies, and they’ve also benefitted from big data systems in such areas as virus medical samples.
Smart government affairs. In accordance with local conditions, local authorities have launched public services such as mobile services, “non-contact” services and “non-face-to-face” review, to promote online inquiry, appointment and handling of government affairs. Local governments are also using new technologies to release epidemic control information, collect relevant clues and data, allocate medical resources and improve people’s awareness. When the Huoshenshan Hospital was being built in Wuhan, more than 50 million netizens watched the construction as “supervisors” on the cloud platform. These all depend on the previous efforts in developing smart government affairs platforms such as “cloud-based governments” and “one-window government services.”
 
Smart transportation. The new-generation AI maps can reflect the movement of citizens in real time. The AI maps take advantage of AI and data and are fully integrated with big data of mobility on Baidu Maps to keep the general public, media, governments and researchers informed of the current status in epidemic prevention and control, and to know travel routes or restrictions in various places, thus offering comprehensive 3D big data services. In addition, autonomous driving technology has been applied in many scenes to conduct monitoring and screening. Internet companies have deployed unmanned disinfection robots and unmanned delivery vehicles in the isolation areas in various hospitals. The intelligent transportation system not only provides strong support for emergency relief and supplies deployment in a rapid way, but also saves a lot of human resources.
Smart communities. Many communities are taking advantage of the innovative service model that integrates “Internet of Things + Internet + Property Management Services” to enable such functions as screening both migrant population and local residents, paying follow-up visits and sending notices to select groups of people. Other innovative services included smart mobility, sensorless access control, online payment, smart payment collection, cloud-based monitoring, and online sourcing. Smart communities developed on new-generation information technology not only saves manpower compared with traditional management, but also improves the life quality of residents to a certain extent.
Smart education. Many technology companies have responded to the government’s call to provide online education programs for students by launching a number of educational products and services targeting the education industry. Many large Internet companies are collaborating with online education partners to provide integrated online teaching solutions for education authorities at all levels, as well as elementary and middle school students, all for free during the epidemic. Some technology companies are leveraging AI technology and using precise three-step AI teaching methods, which refer to using questions to intelligently check how students master the knowledge, using AI to recommend knowledge points that should be learned first, and then using exercises to help students understand the knowledge better and improve learning efficiency. In the meantime, online education institutions are launching “free courses” during the outbreak, thus accelerating the popularity of the online education model.
Telecommuting. Many online voice chat terminals and online office terminals have issued remote office guides to provide enterprises with remote office support services such as cloud computing and video conferencing. These efforts are helping enterprises to quickly restore production capacity, and enabling functions like online consultation and health information reporting for the purpose of epidemic prevention and control. The demand for telecommuting is expected to continue to rise as more companies begin to resume work in the future. Meanwhile, this large-scale test will also play a leading and demonstrative role in changing corporate management models, reducing office costs, and achieving eco-friendly development.
Smart finance. First, community solutions are being developed for all scenarios and integrated with online payment systems such as Internet-based payment, thus enabling big data management as well as purchase and delivery of supplies within the communities. The solutions are promoting effective prevention and control of the epidemic, while ensuring stability of people’s livelihood. Secondly, advanced financial technology and precise identification and matching enabled by big data are used to further promote inclusive finance, and loans are provided to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that encounter crisis due to the epidemic. Thirdly, concealment of medical history in epidemic prevention and control will be recorded in the personal credit database as the financial system helps increase the costs of cheating. These measures are improving the integration of financial industry development with social services and social governance, which is an important manifestation of smart cities.
Smart life. Fresh food e-commerce is replacing traditional retail more quickly, and online fresh food and grocery shopping becomes the norm. Fresh food platforms have launched “contactless delivery,” while Internet sports platforms have launched services such as free live broadcasts, fitness livestreaming and free medical consultations. The film and television industry has taken measures such as online movie releases to rescue itself, which facilitates development of new formats in the online film and television sector, such as livestreaming, short videos, short dramas, and offline applications of content IP. The previous investments and projects to serve daily consumption and cultural and sports consumption are taking effect, paving the way for sustainable research and development in the smart life area.
Digital economy. Take intelligent manufacturing as an example. Some manufacturing and technology companies have quickly converted or built multiple automated production lines, and within a short period of time, they have produced a large number of medical supplies such as protective suits, masks, medical goggles and testing reagents. It reflects the deep integration of China’s information technology and the real economy, and is also a great example of the digital economy. Taking intelligent construction as an example. The Vulcan Mountain Hospital has used the cutting-edge assembled building technology. It only took 10 days from the start of construction to the inauguration of the building, which greatly improved the treatment capacity in Wuhan. Other key industries in the digital economy, including electronic information and biomedicine, have also played important roles to ensure rapid production, rapid operation and rapid supply.