Lai Ming, director of the science and technology department of the Ministry of Construction, said at a press conference in Beijing that the intelligent handling of information is a strategically important part of the effort to build the country into a modern, well-off, harmonious and innovative nation.
He said China would accelerate the construction of so-called digital cities across the country.
‘Building digital cities means introducing information technologies to city planning, administration, infrastructure construction and other public service facilities, Lai Ming said. ‘The rapid development of telecommunications, the Internet and other digital technologies has provided very effective solutions to problems in these fields.’
Digital cities, in this context, are those that use information technology to deliver municipal services to citizens.
During the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05), more than 120 cities set up information systems for city planning and management, and over 400 created information systems for real estate management.
Lai said the government is strongly committed to building digital cities and had given such projects a primary place in the development of the information technology industry and the construction of city infrastructure during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).
With support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Construction will launch a series of projects expected to lead to technological breakthroughs in the building of digital cities.
Cui Junzhi, seen in our illustration, a specialist in computational mathematics and academician of the Chinese Academy of Science, said the ideal digital city would successfully blend physical space with cyberspace. ‘It would result in an expansion of a city’s space and improve services.’ A neat metaphysical idea.
Source: China View