Generally, the smart city is made up of three parts: one, the base or foundation that includes optical cables, 5G network, data centre and others; two, the big data level that includes cloud computing; and three, the application level that includes virtual reality, self-driving technology, e-government and others. Artificial intelligence and cybersecurity are integrated into all three parts.

Smart cities are subsets of the digital economy which includes a multitude of hardware suppliers for smart city initiatives such as mobile payment, remote healthcare and education, and high definition games. These suppliers form a large digital economy supply chain network and provide jobs based on digital technology.

According to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the scale of the country’s digital economy has reached RMB31 trillion (S$6 trillion), occupying one-third of China’s GDP.

… Tactics for developing smart cities have already matured, consisting of a basic chain from top-level design, solution design to actual production. Against the backdrop of the China-US geopolitical and technological competitions, the battle has shifted to formulating and implementing strategies, especially in the acquisitions of SMEs or startups which possess hard-core technology globally.

For example, Singapore, Japan and Europe enterprises are collaborating with Chinese companies and joining forces to enter and expand a third party market to alleviate political and commercial risks. This is a goal that various governments hope to achieve to safeguard multilateral cooperation mechanisms and free trade, which are of utmost importance in an ever-changing global geopolitical landscape.

… The writer is visiting senior fellow, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.