Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding to develop smart city initiatives in the city of Duisburg
Chinese vendor Huawei has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the city of Duisburg, in Germany, to work together on smart city development.
Huawei said that the MoU provides a framework for further discussion in which the two partners will commit to the implementation of specific projects in the smart city field.
The Chinese vendor also announced plans to build a Joint Innovation Center in Duisburg. Plans already include expansion of the city’s WLAN network to include the city zoo and public transport. In education, the focus will be on the development of an “intelligent classroom” with Wi-Fi and broadband connections for Duisburg schools.
Future projects could include intelligent street lamps, smart supply networks and traffic management systems, as well as simplified access systems for citizens wishing to access local government systems.
Huawei also said it will offer advice to building future 5G networks, which will be key for autonomous driving, smart logistics and connected industrial processes.
“Innovative technologies are the key to meeting the challenges of the future. We want to exploit the opportunities offered by digitisation to improve the quality of life in the city and promote economic growth,” said Duisberg Lord Mayor Sören Link.
“At the same time, we are further expanding our relations with a global player from China with this cooperation. We are an attractive partner city for international companies, employees and students.”
“We are pleased to be able to use our digitization skills to develop the city of Duisburg into a smart city,” said Wang Yonggang, CFO of Huawei‘s Enterprise Business Group. ”Our products and solutions, will help simplify daily living of citizens and visitors in Duisburg, and to increase security.“
In November 2017, the Chinese company launched its Intelligent Operation Centre (IOC), a management solution for smart cities. The solution uses a network of data centres, to collect information from around the city and serves it to administrators.
Huawei has developed multiple technologies for the smart city concept, such as smart government, safe city, smart emergency command, smart education, smart grid and smart tourism, as well as smart hospital. Currently, Huawei’s smart city solutions serve over 120 cities in more than 40 countries around the globe.
In Europe, Huawei signed a strategic alliance with Malta to establish an innovation center in that country focused on safe city solutions including nationwide surveillance. Huawei said that this nationwide safety and surveillance plan, will combine alarm reporting, data transmission, video surveillance, transport management, police scheduling, wired-wireless communications, and voice and video conferencing technologies.
Huawei also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, in Italy, and the Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development (CRS4) for the research and development of smart and safe city research projects to be implemented on the island as a whole, starting in the capital Cagliari.
Huawei is also developing smart city initiatives in Dubai following a recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Dubai Civil Defense.
Under the terms of the agreement, the vendor will work with Dubai Civil Defense to develop smart city solutions to leverage cloud computing and cloud data centers, software-defined networking (SDN), big data, business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR), unified communications, intelligent video surveillance and other technologies.
