Beijing’s New Silk Road project serves as a highway for ‘smart cities’

The “Belt and Road Initiative” is modernising the ancient Silk Road trading route – and the countries along the route – through a number of impressive infrastructure projects.

Meanwhile, global digital developments continue to transform how we live and interact by leveraging information and communication technology (ICT). The internet of things (IoT) leverages on ICT advances to enable helpful data exchanges, which are increasingly common in our daily lives.

These two separate developments – Beijing’s initiative and the emergence of new digital innovations – are creating opportunities and fuelling the development of “smart cities” across the region, which could in turn change the way we live.

A case in point is the New Manila Bay City of Pearl, a key development project by the Chinese and Filipino governments under Beijing’s initiative. It is expected to be completed in seven phases over the next two decades and is shaping up to be a smart city of the future.

Hong Kong-based Ho & Partners Architects(hpa) is leading the architectural planning and project management for the ambitious project in the central district of the Philippines’ capital.

Nicholas Ho, deputy managing director at hpa, defines the key features of smart cities as “smart mobility, smart grids and, most importantly, smart governance”, which will draw from “an optimisation of ICT and IoT in their design”.