Tech giants in Shenzhen are providing powerful support in new-type smart city transformation. Ping An Group, China’s largest insurer, has also set its eye on the smart city projects and have had a foothold with its distinctive advantages, said Wayne Hu, Ping An Smart City Co-President & CTO.
Hu made the remarks before attending the Asia-Pacific Smart City Development Forum during the 21st China Hi-Tech Fair.
“Before we apply the technologies in smart city projects, we have incubated the technologies within the system of Ping An’s own businesses. For example, Ping An applies its mature image recognition technology to food safety. “The precision of the technology is high enough to even help the Supervision Administration Department of Food Safety to identify a mouse in a kitchen, which can significantly reduce manpower and increase efficiency,” Hu said.
According to Hu, Ping An is investing at least 1 per cent of its annual revenue in R&D, which includs smart city technologies. He said Ping An now has eight research institutes and 52 labs dedicated to the development of technology.
In early 2019, Shenzhen government joined hands with Ping An Group to build the app “i深圳,” one of the most striking example of Shenzhen’s efforts in facilitating e-government services. “The app offers over 4,000 services that makes it much easier and efficient for residents to go through government-required procedures,” he said.
Hu also mentioned Ping An’s natural advantage in the analysis of macroeconomics can be valuable references for cities to formulate economic policies. “We can help forecast the GDP in the coming six to nine months.” the CTO said.
Hu said Ping An is building a e-license platform based on blockchain to make people’s daily lives much more convenient and secure. “Thanks to the blockchain privacy protection technology, we are making efforts to apply the technology into the scenarios in people’s daily lives such as the use of electronic medical record, marriage certificate and accumulation funds payment,” he said.
Hu believes smart cities should put people first and address people’s concerns. “Only when people feel convenience and efficiency in their daily lives will they gain a sense of happiness.”
Hu said Ping An is committed to improving government services, helping companies to grow and benefiting the public. He also said Ping Anhad secured 200 or so smart city projects in more than 100 cities and in the future Ping An will seek cooperation in the South East Asian countries including Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.