Microsoft smart city project taking off in China

Microsoft has won over 200 partnerships with governments, businesses and individuals worldwide to work on the corporations Citynext smart city initiative launched last year.

The Citynext project is providing the technology and expertise for cities worldwide to incorporate smart technology into governance for 'localization cooperation' with their partners.

The project has become one of Microsoft's key development strategies said his company's general strategies will focus on four facets, cloud computing, mega data, mobilisation and social networking.

Joel Cherkis, general manager for government sales at Microsoft, leads the Citynext project and spoke alongside the 2014 Boao Forum for Asia's annual conference in Seattle last week.

The Microsoft smart city model is based on a people-first principle with all usable resources to be "magnified," including energy resources, education, transportation and urban security.

Microsoft has also found that the model can also be applied to universities, enterprises and airports with transportation, public security and dining services benefitting from a smart city planner.

It was recently announced at a Smart City Laboratory jointly set up in Beijing by China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and Microsoft that around 200 Chinese cities have been earmarked for a smart city transformation.