Digital infrastructure powers Xiong’an, China’s ‘city of future’

As night falls, a deep-blue “eye” gazes into the distance. Located in the western part of the Rongdong District of Xiong’an New Area, north China’s Hebei province, the Xiong’an Urban Computing Center rests quietly. Resembling a human eye in its architectural design, it is locally known as the “Eye of Xiong’an.”

Inside this “city brain,” servers glow with streams of blue light, supporting multidimensional computing for government services, urban planning, and ecological management. Large screens display a continuously evolving virtual city model on a digital operations platform.

“The Xiong’an Urban Computing Center adopts an integrated computing system that includes edge computing, cloud computing, supercomputing, and intelligent computing, providing computing, storage, and network services for big data, blockchain, and the Internet of Things across the city,” said Zhao Song, an engineer at the center.

When asked what practical benefits the center brings, Zhao replied, “There are quite a lot,” citing the Xiong’an Pass project as an example. Its systems are deployed at the Xiong’an Urban Computing Center, allowing residents to use a third-generation social security card — known as the Xiong’an Pass — to access services in government affairs, social security, healthcare, transportation, and daily consumption. To date, more than 810,000 such cards have been issued, with over 6 million uses recorded.

“The computing center provides strong support for our operations,” said Zhang Xu, project manager of the Xiong’an Pass at China Xiong’an Group Digital City Company.

During a government-led consumption promotion campaign, the mini-program of Xiong’an Pass experienced up to 40,000 concurrent connections at the moment vouchers were released, placing high demands on bandwidth and cloud resource responsiveness, Zhang noted.

With 50 petabytes of current storage capacity and a planned expansion to 1,000 petabytes, the facility prioritizes sustainability. Its design includes over 10,000 square meters of ultra-low energy consumption building space, setting national benchmarks for green infrastructure. Critically, all technologies — from chips and servers to cloud platforms and applications — are domestically developed.

All government service systems in Xiong’an New Area are hosted at the computing center. Enterprises such as China Satellite Network Group Co., Ltd., China Space-Time Information Co., Ltd., and China Xiong’an Group, along with research institutions including the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Xiong’an Institute of Meteorological Artificial Intelligence, have also deployed their operations here. To date, the center has aggregated over 38 billion data entries and handled more than 400 million shared interface calls

As a “city of the future” entrusted with a mission of lasting national significance, Xiong’an integrates intelligence and innovation into its development, with the digital city and the physical city evolving in tandem.

In Xiong’an, even traffic lights can “think.” During morning rush hour in the Rongdong district, traffic signals adjust in real time based on traffic flow — an example of the city’s artificial intelligence-powered system and a vivid illustration of its digital twin model.

Underground utility tunnels also reflect this digital intelligence. “Through digital twin technology, sensor devices, and building information modeling, we monitor and provide early warnings for potential issues in water, electricity, gas, heating, and communication systems,” Zhao explained. In Xiong’an, every building, road, and pipeline has its own “digital ID.” “The digital city enables more precise and efficient urban governance,” Zhao added.

Xiong’an New Area has established a smart city standards system based on building information modeling and city information modeling platforms. It has built an independently innovative urban computing system featuring coordinated edge-cloud supercomputing integration, while achieving full coverage of IPv6, the HarmonyOS ecosystem, and sensing systems. Smart applications from government services and environmental protection to transportation and energy, are being rapidly implemented across the city.

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Published – March 24, 2026 03:07 pm IST