Shanghai’s free-trade zone will accelerate digital infrastructure push with 5G, IoT and AI tech

Shanghai has kicked off a new development plan for its free-trade zone that focuses on the construction of 5G networks, internet of things connectivity, edge computing and improved data hubs.

The new focus, detailed in five-year guidelines issued on Monday, comes as the world’s second-biggest economy looks to digital infrastructure to recover from the coronavirus slowdown and to retool its economy for the future.

The city authorities will promote the construction of 5G networks, optical fibre broadband, IoT and industrial internet applications, and speed up on building data hubs and edge computing networks in the Lingang New Area of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, according to telecommunications infrastructure guidelines planned for the area throughout 2025.

Shanghai expects to have citywide 5G coverage by the end of the year, according to comments from the city mayor in January.

Located in the southeast corner of Shanghai and home to Tesla’s first factory outside the US, Lingang is expected to lead the city’s effort to become a “new-generation” information and communication hub within the Asia-Pacific region.

In separate efforts, new experiments will be carried out to explore cross-border internet governance and data exchange, including setting up offshore data centres and a white-list to explore how some companies can access the “international internet”.