IBM, Shenyang and Northeastern University unveil eco-city collaboratory

International Business Machines Corp (IBM), the Shenyang city government and Shenyang-based Northeastern University jointly announced the establishment of an eco-city collaborative laboratory, or 'collaboratory' on Wednesday.

The planned collaboratory, located in the city's Hunnan New Area, where thousands of hi-tech companies are already located, will be under the charge of Song Qi, former vice mayor of the city.

"The collaboratory will aim to develop Shenyang into a model for the country's eco-city development and environmental construction," Song said at the signing of the strategic cooperation agreement.

"We will change Shenyang's image from an industrialized city into an eco-city within five years using IBM's advanced technologies and research abilities," he said.

Song, who viewed smart city construction to be even more important to our future than the development of the internet, was more than optimistic when talking about the three sided cooperation at a news briefing after the signing ceremony.

"As one of the country's most famous heavy industries bases, Shenyang is also Northeast China's center of economy, culture, transportation, finance and trade," Song said.

The city government has invested up to 300 million yuan ($44 million) in establishing the collaboratory as part of the "smart city" program and they have confidence in IBM that the technology giant can manage the program well, Song added.

Sharon Nunes, vice president of Big Green Innovations in IBM, echoed Song's idea when interviewed by chinadaily.com.cn, saying the leaders of the city had a "compelling need and desire of doing something".

"We were in discussion with a number of cities around the world on different types of collaboratory. This one (Shenyang) is unique because it combines transportation, water, energy and food and there are no other collaboratories that we've announced have those kinds of components that really help to define what a smart city would be," Nunes said when asked if IBM has considered other cities to carry out their "smart" plan.

"The assets developed here in Shenyang will be brought to other cities," said Nunes, adding that she expects those assets to be the best and available to the rest of the world and to be reused by IBM and its business partners.

"My main goal for the last couple of years working with the China Research Lab in Beijing has been to find a model city in China because we know China is a very important market and if you can solve the problems in China you can solve problems in many other cities around the globe," said Nunes.

Source: BizChina