The Asia-Pacific Smart City Development Forum 2019, co-host by the State Information Center and IDG Asia, was held on Nov 14 in Shenzhen as part of the ongoing China Hi-Tech Fair (CHTF).

Launching its first batch of smart cities for experiment in 2013, China has developed into a country with the most smart cities in the world.

Zhu Dongfang, vice president of IDG Asia, said that this new type of smart cities is the key comprehensive carrier for cultivating new technology, models and forms of a digital economy. The rapid healthy development of smart city can provide a huge economic market and solid support for the development of digital economy.

It is expected that the market capacity for China's smart cities will double to over $59.9 billion in 2023 compared with that in 2018.

Shan Zhiguang, director of department of information and industry development from the State Information Center, suggested that the construction of smart cities in the future should pay attention to people's experience.

Digital twin city, a digital representation of a real-world city, has been a big topic of discussion throughout the smart city industry.

Kang Ning, president of Huawei's smart city solution department, said 5G and AI can push forward the construction of digital twin city. Kang added that the core challenge comes from data as over 90 percent of the data haven't realized digitization.

Li Hui, vice president of ZTE, said the construction of a city data network integrating 4G and 5G will be of great importance in the development of smart city.

"5G is like a catalyst, bringing all new technologies in building smart cities closer to everyone," added Li.