Singapore and China embarked on a new ‘Smart City Twinning’ initiative last week, with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on the Strategic Collaboration on Smart City Development between the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), International Enterprise (IE) Singapore and Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee (SIPAC).

The Sino-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) is one of the pioneers in smart city building with a reputation for openness to change and innovation as its key engine for growth, making it an attractive city to pilot and trial smart and sustainable solutions.

Under the twinning smart city partnership, IDA, IE Singapore and SIPAC will identify a suitable district in Singapore and SIP for pilots and trials of smart cities. An open and innovative procurement model such as Singapore’s “Call for Collaboration” methodology will be adopted, providing Singaporean and Chinese enterprises a platform to demonstrate their capabilities in smart city technology.

Governments of both countries will also have the opportunity to test out these innovative solutions before considering them for deployment in other cities or districts.

Mr Steve Leonard, Executive Deputy Chairman of IDA, said: “Singapore and China share a common vision of developing ‘smart’ cities that are great places to work and to live. IT is the backbone of any smart city, and the amount of data being created every day continues to explode.”

“As a result, it becomes even more critical that we focus on innovations in how we Capture, Move and Interpret that data in ways that allow us to improve the lives of our citizens. I am delighted that we can work with SIPAC to identify opportunities that build on the experience of our local companies to further develop the Suzhou Industrial Park. Through the ‘twinning’ approach between Singapore and Suzhou Industrial Park, IDA looks forward to inspiring our local ‘tech talent’ to tackle important issues on a different scale,” Leonard added.

The partnership opens up more direct opportunities for both infocomm industries to collaborate in Singapore and China’s smart city development. Local enterprises in different sectors can look forward to collaboration opportunities in Intelligent Transport, Smart Education and Smart Environment Management.

Other areas of cooperation in the application of advanced technologies, including Cloud Computing, Mobile Internet and the ‘Internet of Things’ for smart city building, will also be accelerated. This joint collaboration will build a collection of leading and unique solutions that can be showcased to other cities in China.

Mr Yew Sung Pei, Assistant Chief Executive Officer of IE Singapore, said: “19 years into the partnership with China, Singapore continues to fine-tune our value proposition and relevance to the development of SIP. China’s latest plan to develop over 190 smart city pilots will bring immense opportunities to Singapore companies to provide solutions for wide-ranging sectors such as transport, education, environment, e-government and healthcare. With SIP’s conducive environment and Singapore’s track record in this area, we are confident that this collaboration will become a leading showcase for advanced smart city solutions in China.”

Mr Barry Yang, Chairman of SIPAC, said: “SIP is excited to have been chosen as a pilot Smart City by the Ministry of Housing and Rural-Urban Development. Since SIPAC identified ‘Informatisation’ as an enabler in achieving modernisation in 2008, we have put in place a series of initiatives to bring SIP to the forefront of smart city development in China. We look forward to partnering Singapore in further developing innovative solutions and piloting them through the proposed ‘Twinning’ initiative.”