The eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]  

In recent years, Shandong province has introduced a series of policies and action plans to turn itself into a digital powerhouse and drive modern city construction.

With the goal of creating a "sensitive, thoughtful, and warm" smart city, Shandong province had in 2019 issued the country's first provincial standard for smart city construction and conducted pilot projects in local cities.

A specialized data governance organization, the Shandong Provincial Big Data Bureau has played a leading role in promoting the construction of new smart cities in the province in all aspects.

Shandong has connected key business systems of various provincial departments, gathered various government, public, and social data, and promoted the establishment of "city brains" in all 16 prefecture-level cities. It has integrated various digital service resources such as data, videos, communications, and systems at all levels in the province, forming an intelligent decision-making system that combines the province and cities.

This system has been gradually extended to districts and counties, providing digital empowerment for various application scenarios in public services, social governance, and people's livelihood, and comprehensively enhancing the government's scientific decision-making capabilities and governance performance.

To date, more than 2.6 million households in Shandong have used mobile phones to complete enrollment for compulsory education. The "Internet plus Medical Insurance" comprehensive supervision platform has achieved full-process application of medical insurance electronic vouchers for healthcare services.

In October of last year, the province proposed building no less than 5,000 smart communities by the end of 2025 and promoting smart living in thousands of households.

The construction of new smart cities in Shandong has been comprehensively upgraded and accelerated since last year. Over 7,000 smart scenes have been created, and 15 cities have been selected as the top 100 digital cities, the most in the country.