Shenzhen AI smart city

The southern Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen is ramping up efforts to accelerate smart city construction with measures to foster artificial intelligence (AI) industry development.

In Shenzhen, along a stretch of sidewalk are 5G-powered streetlights which are mounted with LED screens, cameras, and microphones. The poles can give out voice alerts when there is illegal parking or littering, and can keep an eye on traffic, air quality, and noise levels.

Besides, the city’s subway riders don’t need a metro card or phone, but their face to make a payment. And there are self-service kiosks in subway stations, which use speech recognition, AI, and biometric tech to offer assistance to passengers.

The digital transformation of infrastructure is likely to speed up in Shenzhen, as the city, which is already home to over 2,000 AI companies, announced in December 2024 a slew of measures to build itself into a pioneer city for AI.