China’s new aerospace city to be governed by smart brain technology

Singapore firm CyberVein will be responsible for building the blockchain-powered governance system

CyberVein, a blockchain data firm based in Singapore, is revealed to be one of the twelve firms that will participate in the construction of China’s Hainan Wenchang International Aerospace City.

The China Global Television Network revealed that construction began last month, on a site that previously hosted a satellite center. The project has been called “the country’s first aerospace cultural and tourism city, and it will be a hub dedicated to the development of aerospace produce and support services that are meant to be used in China’s spacecraft and satellite launch missions.

The facility, which spans over twelve million square meters, will be home to the country’s first aerospace supercomputing center, and it will focus on the development of 40 technological areas such as big data, high precision positioning technology, and satellite remote sensing.

CyberVein will be working in collaboration with several major Chinese firms, including the Fortune 500 companies Huawei and Kingsoft Cloud. It will use its expertise on artificial intelligence, blockchain, and big data technologies to supplement the development of the city’s Smart Brain Planning and Design Institute.

The company has explained that the primary project it will be working on is Smart Brain, which is a data-driven governance system that will be built on the firm’s proprietary technology. The Smart Brain will be used to process data in real-time for the organisation and management of urban public resources. Those involved in the project have yet to delve further into how this use case of blockchain technology will be employed when it comes to developing the governance model.

The development of the city is a part of Hainan’s “Free Trade Port” development initiative. This is a massive infrastructure program that is working on transforming the island into a globally significant free-trade port by the year 2050.

China has been working on the development and integration of blockchain technology across several industries around the country. In 2016, the government partnered with blockchain-based record verification and auditing infrastructure provider Factom to roll out data storage, auditing, and verification services for several regions in China. l

Beyond the implementation of blockchain technology, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is also far  into the first phase of testing with its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan, as well as its underlying payment system. The Central Bank of China released the pilot version to several government employees, corporations, and cities.