City Brain (sometimes treated as an improper noun by sources and rendered as city brain; zh, c=城市大脑, p=chéngshì dànǎo) is a software system that utilizes

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

and data collection for urban management. Developed by Chinese tech company

Alibaba Group Alibaba Group Holding Limited, branded as Alibaba (), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in E-commerce in China, e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzho ...

, the City Brain systems have been adopted by local governments throughout the country as well as in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

, the capital of Malaysia. Currently, these systems are mostly used for traffic management, but they have been used and expanded to cover other needs as well. City Brain systems have been promoted as making cities "smarter" and improving their residents' quality of life. However, the systems have also faced criticism for issues relating to privacy, cost, and their use of surveillance.

History and overview

The first City Brain system was announced and developed in 2016 by

Alibaba Cloud Alibaba Cloud, also known as Aliyun ( zh, p=Ālǐyún, s=阿里云, l=Ali Cloud), is a cloud computing company, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. Alibaba Cloud provides cloud computing services to online businesses and Alibaba's own e-commerce ecos ...

for its home city of

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

. First aiming to curb the city's high level of traffic congestion, it was initially "given control" of traffic lights in

Xiaoshan District Xiaoshan suburban district HangzhouZhejiang was formerly a city in its own right, separated by the Qiantang River from Hangzhou proper, but the municipality was annexed by its more populous neighbor in 2001. Xiaoshan has a permanent population wi ...

, where it increased traffic speed by 15%. This led to its adoption by the rest of the city in 2017, where it has seen praise for continuing to reduce congestion and aiding first responders to travel faster. In addition to traffic light management, the system also analyzes camera feeds to detect accidents and alert authorities. In the following years, many other local governments in China sought their own such systems. In addition,

, the capital of Malaysia, announced its adoption of a City Brain system in 2018 to deal with traffic. City Brain's use in Kuala Lumpur was Alibaba's first overseas implementation of the platform. By September 2019, Alibaba stated that 22 Chinese cities, including

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

, as well as Kuala Lumpur, had City Brain systems. The scope of these systems has expanded, with some being used to track pollution, alert authorities to illegal gatherings and possible conflicts of interest/corruption in government outsourcing, and aid in contact tracing during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Some commentators criticized this rapid adoption, pointing out the high cost of the system (often in the range of hundreds of millions of

renminbi The renminbi ( ; currency symbol, symbol: Yen and yuan sign, ¥; ISO 4217, ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB), also known as the Chinese yuan, is the official currency of the China, People's Republic of China. The renminbi is issued by the Peop ...

), questing their usability, especially for smaller communities, and asking if they could be trusted with city residents' personal data and information. Further attention has been brought to issues of privacy, with concerns being brought up over data harvesting, the use of surveillance, and issues with oversight and possible data breaches.

References

External links

* {{Cite web, title=City Brain Lab / 城市大脑实验室, url=https://damo.alibaba.com/labs/city-brain?lang=en, lang=en, zh, access-date=2021-11-25, website=Alibaba DAMO Academy Smart cities