Cisco Systems is extending a hand to various mainland cities to build prototypes of 'smart, connected' metropolises that enhance residents' quality of life, stimulate economic development and ensure environmental sustainability.
The world's largest networking equipment supplier has featured this new approach to planned urban development at the World Expo in Shanghai, where it is the only global information technology firm with a corporate pavilion.
'This is the future,' Cisco chairman and chief executive John Chambers, said yesterday. Rapid urbanisation on the mainland and in developing countries required greater adoption of technology along with other new tools and strategies.
According to Cisco, about 350 million people will move to the mainland's large urban centres over the next 15 years. As a result, 221 cities will have a population of one million or more. In Europe today, only 35 cities are that big.
Against this background, high-speed internet infrastructure has proliferated worldwide, increasingly becoming the platform for all communications and information technology services.
'All of a sudden, the network will be the fabric of what you see, both in terms of a better city and a better life,' Chambers said.
