Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies has signed a Letter of Intention (LoI) with the Barcelona City Council to collaborate in facilitating investment for innovative new technology projects in the Spanish city, Huawei said in a release.
The agreement
was signed at the Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC) 2019, taking place
this week in Barcelona.
Some areas of cooperation will
include innovative technologies developed by Huawei, such as 5G, smart city
applications, and digital transformation.
The vendor noted that the agreement endorses the commitment of Huawei acting as one of Barcelona’s key technology partners, providing a wide range of ICT technology development resources. Huawei also said that the firm is actively committed to innovation, R&D, and constantly looking for new initiatives to collaborate in the overall economic projection of the city.
Jaume Collboni, of the Barcelona
City Council said, “Collaborations such as this with Huawei reinforce
Barcelona’s position as an advanced technology city, contributing to the
creation of high quality employment, and reinforcing us as a reference city in
the Asian market.”
Collboni noted the growing number
technology companies with headquarters in the Spanish city. “This adds to
the more than 200 technology companies that have moved to the city in recent
years, which highlights the importance of economic promotional work carried out
by Barcelona in Asia to help us become a strategic partner in business projects
such as the agreement just announced with Huawei.”
Sun Fuyou, Vice President of
Huawei’s Enterprise Business Group, said “Spain is a very important market for
Huawei. We established our business here 18 years ago and our commitment to
contribute to the growth of the digital economy has only become stronger. We
have a very close relationship with Barcelona, a city that welcomes us every
year to showcase our most innovative technologies at the Mobile World Congress,
and the Smartcity Expo World Congress. Our aim is to cooperate in the digital transformation
of Barcelona to help make it the most innovative city in Europe.”
During the Smart
City Expo World Congress, Huawei showcased a wide-range of urban applications,
such as intelligent education, intelligent healthcare, intelligent government,
which are all based on the Horizon Digital Platform and Intelligent Operation
Center (IOC) for cities.
Based on this
platform, Huawei also launched the “HiCity” Intelligent City Solution, which
according to the vendor “optimizes the integration of a variety of new ICT
technologies and data to streamline service processes, share service data, and
transfer information flows, reducing the threshold for the use of new
technologies and makes integration easier.”
During the expo, Huawei
officially released the Smart City Development and Governance Standpoints
Paper. Through urban case analysis, the paper details two typical models and
six paths of how intelligent cities empower urban development.
The paper
offered four initiatives on intelligent city construction. First, adaptation to
new trends and shifting of the role of governments can accelerate intelligent
city deployment. Second, adopting an economy-driven model can boost economic
vitality. Third, systematic planning is needed to build a comprehensive and
layered intelligent city capability system. Fourth, multi-faceted efforts help
secure the sustainable development of intelligent cities.
Huawei also
highlighted that its intelligent city solution has served more than 500 million
people in over 200 cities across more than 40 countries and regions.