Business China collaborated with Singapore’s and Chongqing’s government to introduce Singapore companies to the latest technology development at the annual flagship event in Chongqing – Smart China Expo 2019. This year, a delegation of around 20 corporate members joined the strong Singapore contingent and participated in a wide range of activities, networking sessions, conferences and exhibition. The annual flagship event was held in Chongqing from 26 to 29 August 2019.
Some corporate members exhibited their products and services at the Singapore Pavilion – spearheaded by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). With the curated line-up of company visits, management sharing and networking opportunities, the Singapore delegates gained insights into the technology landscape in Chongqing, the business models adopted, and the future development plan. The immersive experience allowed the delegates to have a deeper understanding of China. The event was made possible with strong partnership with IMDA, SGTech, Singapore Management University (SMU) and the Chongqing Government.
Business China’s delegates had the opportunity to interact with the Chongqing government, key technology companies in Chongqing, as well as other Singapore companies. Many Chinese and Singapore companies operating in China shared their valuable experiences. Furthermore, delegates also had an exclusive opportunity to interact with Singapore Minister for Manpower and Second Minister of Home Affairs, Mrs Josephine Teo; who is also the Minister-in-charge of China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity (CCI).
Singapore and Chongqing jointly organised the Future of Services Conference, graced by Minister Teo and Mayor of Chongqing Mr Tang Liangzhi. The conference was hosted by Smart China Expo 2019, organised by IMDA, and supported by Business China.
The forum brought participants a couple of fruitful sharing sessions entitled “Reimagining Businesses, Delighting Customers”; with six industry experts and professionals sharing on how businesses can leverage emerging technologies to delight customers and how companies can make cloud and artificial intelligence work for them.
“Internet of Things, together with Internet of People is the Internet of everything” said Dr Parag Khanna, Founder and Managing Partner of FutureMap in his keynote speech. He talked about China’s stability factors which includes the massive industry to services transition and the international liquidity. He also mentioned that capital account liberalisation is one of the key drivers of Asian financial growth and reform. He believes that Asia is still the world’s factory floor, especially North-east Asia and increasingly South-east Asia. However, most Asian economies have rapidly transitioned towards services to compensate the premature deindustrialisation. He foresees that sectors namely logistics and manufacturing, energy and agriculture, retail and consumer goods and healthcare and pharmaceuticals will benefit the most from applying cloud computing, machine learning and AI.
Mr Choy Da Wen, Senior Vice President of Transformation and Enterprise Development, Changi Airport Group also communicated how he had harnessed emerging technologies to delight customers by making travel personalised, stress-free and positively surprising. For example, the usage of computer vision to help passengers find their cars eliminates the worry of not being able to remember where vehicles are parked at.
Xiaomi also uses technology extensively to bring their customers a new level of experience. Mr Cao Ziwei, Vice President of Xiaomi Technologies revealed Xiaomi’s triathlon business model where they apply the Internet model to the real economy. They have the world’s largest consumer Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) Platform that connects more than 196 million smart devices, a year-on-year increase of 69.5%. The investment in the next five years will exceed RMB 10 billion.
Other than the Future of Services Conference, the delegates also attended the 5G Intelligent Future Summit and iFLYTEK A.I. Ecosystem Summit 2019. Speakers included You Yian, Vice President of ZTE Communications Co., Ltd., Liu Song, Vice President of Alibaba Group and Gan Bin, Vice President of Huawei Technology Co. Ltd. They shared their experiences, provided insights to the current situation and gave advice to industry players.
The Smart China Expo 2019 included a Singapore pavilion, which showcased smart capabilities of Singapore companies. About 60 Singapore companies exhibited; including ST Engineering, Singtel, Handshakes, Skylab Services, and Fooyo, making Singapore Pavilion one of the most prominent anchors at the Expo.