Shanghai rolls out smart building management in downtown area

The Shanghai Urban Operation Management Center and Huangpu district government held a news briefing on Thursday to introduce the smart management trial that was implemented in the city's downtown area earlier this month.

According to the authorities, the trial marked the first time that smart management was utilized in a building in the city. Chinese multinational technology company provided technological support for the trial.

During the trial, the smart system of the Nanjing Building issued alerts to security personnel through a smart watch when a person on the upper levels opened a window and created a risk of falling objects. This risk was also communicated to district authorities.

The warnings were later dismissed after a security worker closed the window.

Xu Huili, deputy director of the Shanghai Urban Operation Management Center, said that traditional methods of allocating more personnel to perform frontline administration duties are often ineffective in discovering problems and dealing with potential hazards in a timely manner, especially in a city as large as Shanghai.

"Shanghai is pioneer in promoting and urban digital transformation and has been attempting to integrate social resources with the government's administrative resources to facilitate digital urban management," she said.

Powered by advanced technologies such as cloud systems, big data, artificial intelligence, edge computing and 5G, the smart system for the Nanjing Building is able to monitor and evaluate aspects of the building including visitor flow, fire prevention, noise, elevators and water pipes in real time. The system can also produce "health check reports" about these different aspects.

Authorities also announced at the conference that 100 innovative scenarios where such smart systems help empower urban management in small units will be created in the near future.