China is going ahead full throttle with its plan for building blockchain-empowered smart cities as its latest initiative launches a unique identification system built for enhanced connectivity and data sharing among these cities.
Even before the world could make sense of the Chinese government’s out-of-the-blue yet extraordinary blockchain push, the country’s vigorous blockchain initiatives are back in the news once again. Reportedly, China has independently designed and published an identification system for its smart cities with blockchain as its underlying technology.
China’s smart cities get blockchain boost
Three institutions from Shijiazhuang province in north China piloted the blockchain identification system project on Sunday, following which, cities across the country have been able to apply for their own unique code.
Zhang Chao, director of the Zhongguancun Industry & Information Research Institute of Two-dimensional Code Technology and one of the developers of the system, mentioned that the undermining technology used is blockchain. Since the country seems to put its heart and soul into designing it, Chao confirmed that the technology would be independently distributed and managed.
It will have a consolidated distribution rule, a resolution of distributed storage and an immutable code, he asserted.
He Kejia, Vice President of the China Research Society of Urban Development, offered the rationale behind the initiative. According to him, there was a growing need for a unified code for industries and departments in the age of the internet where information flow is constant, thereby causing problems related to data interoperability and application incompatibility.
Meanwhile, China’s smart city development project, which is a massive and complex web of technologies, took off in 2016 with an aim to build at least one hundred smart cities by the end of 2020. As more and more people continue to migrate to cities, this web is expected to grow immensely to support an urban lifestyle with an effective infrastructure administration and energy consumption.
