By Tanzim Anwar

DHAKA, Dec 27, 2024 (BSS) - Imagine a city where traffic congestion, housing issues, waste management, pollution control, and even crime prevention are seamlessly managed on a single screen.

This vision is no longer futuristic but a reality, thanks to Huawei's groundbreaking "One Screen City 360 Degrees" solution.

During a recent visit to Huawei's Executive Briefing Center in Beijing, a delegation of Bangladeshi journalists, including BSS correspondent, was introduced to the intricacies of this innovative system.

The Chinese tech behemoth has harnessed artificial intelligence and cutting-edge technology to unify urban management systems.

As cities grow more complex, Huawei's Smart City solution exemplifies how technology can redefine urban management, making communities safer, more efficient, and sustainable for the future.

By analyzing data from street-level devices, residential zones, citizens, and stakeholders, this platform provides instantaneous solutions, revolutionizing how cities operate.

The platform, already adopted in nearly 700 cities worldwide, provides intelligent computing, analytics, and digital services to various government departments, offering solutions as diverse as intelligent video analysis, real-time mapping, and swift resolution of public grievances.

"In one Chinese city, this system has slashed response times for citizen complaints to just 50 seconds-down from an average of four minutes," a Huawei spokesperson revealed.

She said that a smart city needed to operate throughout a long time period, so an operation-supporting service system must be set up to manage all the city's systems and enable the technologies that it uses to be applied in innovative ways.

With the development of technology, software and hardware products are iterated rapidly, bringing about many issues, such as outdated design, system incompatibility, or difficulties with operations and maintenance (O&M) and upgrades, she added.

While sharing its next-gen smart city solutions in Spain this year, Zhou Hongquan, COO of Government Public Services Digitalization BU of Huawei, said it helps city managers optimize operations efficiency of the city, improves residents' quality of life, and provides powerful support for the sustainable development of smart cities.

He said Huawei works with global partners to build new digital infrastructures to achieve efficient city governance and accelerate city intelligence.

Huawei's roots trace back to 1987 when it began with a modest 20,000 yuan (approximately BDT 340,000). Today, it stands as a global tech leader, investing 164.7 billion yuan (approximately BDT 2.8 trillion) in research and development in 2023 alone.

With over 200,000 employees-more than half of whom are engaged in R&D-Huawei continues to push boundaries in innovation.

Though best known for its smartphones and telecom technologies, Huawei's operations span ICT infrastructure, consumer electronics, cloud computing, digital power, and intelligent automotive solutions.

For Bangladesh, Huawei has been a pivotal partner for over 15 years, playing a key role in introducing solar-powered solutions to mitigate energy challenges, and recently partnered with the Bangladesh local brand Walton to produce lithium batteries for telecom base transceiver stations (BTS), according to a Huawei statement provided to the media delegation team.

It said this collaboration includes technical support, design expertise, and material provision to enhance local production capacity.

In the digital realm, Huawei spearheaded Bangladesh's first e-Government cloud initiative, providing cloud services to over 50 companies.

The company also partnered with the Bangladesh Research and Education Network (BdREN) to bring cutting-edge technologies such as high-performance computing, AI, and cloud services to educational institutions.

Huawei's contributions extend to the transportation sector. Its "Smart Highway" project on the Dhaka-Chattogram corridor integrates intelligent systems like license plate recognition, automated number plate detection, and rule violation monitoring.

These innovations enhance highway safety, enabling real-time alerts to police control rooms and continuous monitoring via CCTV.

"With initiatives like these, Huawei is committed to building a fully connected, intelligent Bangladesh," read the statement.