Qingdao in Shandong province [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Qingdao in East China's Shandong province has taken digital transformation as the key to urban construction and the advancement of its economic and social development.

It has entered the top echelon of China's top 100 digital cities in terms of core competitiveness for three consecutive years, while its capability for one-stop government services has ranked among the nation's best for four consecutive years.

E-governance

The city has collected more than 5 billion pieces of data to provide basic support for the integrated network of services and management.

To cater to the needs of enterprises and the public, Qingdao has built the province's first comprehensive service platform titled One Code Connecting the City to simplify administrative approval procedures, improve efficiency, as well as offer convenient services. 

The city gathers more than 30 million pieces of electronic licenses data in 279 categories, in which 11,322 government services can be handled by using e-licenses.

To unify management, Qingdao has also constructed a cloud center gathering 189,000 data resources and 455 application scenarios to empower public services and industrial development.

A digital society

Qingdao promotes the reform of enrollment in the nine-year compulsory education system and offers one-stop services for students, teachers, education staff members, as well as citizens relying on its e-platform. It also boasts the one-hospital application scenario to connect 235 medical institutions and 10 e-platforms, in which diagnosis and treatment are mutually recognized.

The city has developed a WeChat mini program and an app to provide citizens with convenient access to more than 2,200 parking lots and nearly 560,000 parking spaces. It has also accelerated the digital transformation of its social security service system and construction of smart communities.

Digital industrialization

As China's key characteristic software city, Qingdao has cultivated a batch of renowned products, enterprises, and industrial parks. It has 134 products listed in the sixth batch of Shandong's high-end software and the city is home to 179 leading software enterprises.

The city has also launched more than 40 e-platforms on the industrial internet and built about 100 intelligent factories and digital workshops. It has established 30 provincial-level smart agricultural application bases and 78 city-level smart agricultural application bases.

Smart infrastructure

Qingdao houses eight large and medium-sized commercial data centers, as well as 30 small data centers that are close to end users and devices. It also has more than 40,000 standard racks.

The city is renovating traditional infrastructure in the fields of transportation, water conservancy, energy, and urban projects. For instance, it has constructed charging facilities in parking lots, as well as upgraded major projects, including bridges, heating, gas, water supply, drainage, pipe corridors, and subways.