The Macau government and the Alibaba Group, the world’s largest online marketplace, have announced the formation of a strategic partnership, under which the MSAR will employ Alibaba’s big data processing capabilities and cloud computing technology to enhance its public services.
The agreement aims to further Macau’s objective of becoming a smart city – a vision recently formalized in the introduction of Macau’s first Five-Year Development Plan.
The plan seeks to accelerate Macau’s development in several key areas; namely, tourism, information technology training, transportation management, medical services and urban management.
This will include the adoption of target consumer marketing tools, such as convenient mobile payments and customized online promotions at the airport and popular tourist spots.
The agreement will also pave the way for a “smart transportation network” to optimize the management of Macau’s roads, waterways and air traffic, so as to utilize the city’s transportation resources more efficiently.
The agreement will also introduce a new electronic medical system, which will be linked to a global online database of medical information, to assist healthcare providers with decision-making.
It will also launch certificate programs to train professionals in business-to-business e-commerce and cloud computing technology.
The signing was witnessed by Chief Executive (CE) Chui Sai On and Jack Ma, the executive chairman of the Alibaba Group.
Titled “Framework Agreement of Strategic Cooperation on Smart City Development”, the four-year plan is divided into two phases. The first phase, running until June 2019, will comprise the construction of a cloud computing data center in Macau, as well as the data mapping stage, which will be managed by the government.
The government expects projects in the first phase of the rollout to start producing preliminary results by mid-2018, according to a statement released by the Government Information Bureau (GCS).
The second phase of the agreement covers the period from July 2019 to June 2021. Aside from the continuous improvement of Macau’s technological infrastructure, this phase will entail the commencement of projects related to environmental protection, customs clearance procedures and forecasting models for the MSAR’s economy.
According to the statement, the government chose to partner the Alibaba Group for its experience implementing systems in other developed cities.
GCS said that the government had decided to cooperate with Alibaba Cloud – a unit of the Alibaba Group – after conducting thorough research, a decision influenced by the fact that Alibaba Cloud is the largest provider of cloud computing services in China, with clients in hundreds of cities.
The company is also widely recognized in the Asia-Pacific region for its information security practices, and its systems are compatible with Macau’s existing infrastructure, meaning that the government would not need to introduce new systems or change its current ones.
Developing Macau as a smart city is an ongoing government strategy to boost socio-economic development in the MSAR. It will also help the government fulfil its goal of developing information technology services as part of its first Five-Year Development Plan, which covers the period 2016 to 2020.
Smart cities – a relatively new and unconventional concept – use information technologies to manage city-wide assets and deliver services more efficiently.
O Lam, the chief of the CE’s Office, was present to sign the agreement and has stated that Alibaba will help the city achieve its long-term development goals.
Also signing the agreement was Alibaba Cloud president Hu Xiaoming, who said that he was confident that Macau would successfully implement its projects by utilizing Alibaba’s experience in this field. He said that Macau had the potential to become a model smart city for scores of other cities across the Asia-Pacific region.
