The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Sensity Systems Inc., provider of a leading Internet of Things (IoT) platform for Smart Cities, today announced an agreement under which the two organizations will form a new joint venture in China to focus on the development of smart city solutions for China and sales worldwide. The resultant IoT Platform for Chinese Smart Cities will be application compatible with the current Sensity IoT Smart City Platform, thereby providing application developers access to a global market for cities. Outside of China, the joint venture products will be sold under the Sensity platform program.

As manufacturers and governments worldwide seek solutions to combat climate change, China is focused on taking the global lead in the market for smart city installations. The 13th Five Year Plan in China, which lays out the economic goals for 2016-2020, aims at reaching a 70% rate of urbanization by 2030. This means that 350 million people will be added to China’s urban population during that time. There are presently 654 cities in China, of which over 80 have over one million people. This rapid urbanization is creating socioeconomic problems and worsening environmental issues like traffic congestion and pollution that is levying even greater costs on the environmental future of China and the rest of the world.

According to data from the China Academy of ICT (CAICT), linked to the Ministry of Industry
and Information Technology (MIIT), the previous Five Year Plan had total investments in smart cities of up to 1.6 trillion RMB ($260 billion). The goal was to support intelligent upgrading of public utilities and the implementation of smart grids, smart transport, smart water supplies, smart land administration and smart logistics. The new Five Year Plan has an even greater investment and focus on infrastructure upgrades that will improve the country’s environment, as well as improve the efficiency and citizen services through smart technologies.

Under the agreement, CAS Smart City (a corporate enterprise formed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Sensity will set up a green field joint venture based in Nansha, a district of Guangzhou, China. This JV will capitalize on Sensity’s world recognized IoT platform technology for smart cities, as well as previously developed technologies from CAS Smart City and will build on the experience of both CAS Smart City and Sensity in deploying Smart City technologies in more than 50 cities around the world. While the joint venture will work first on developing smart city solutions focused on the Chinese market, since the joint venture platform will be application compatible with Sensity’s existing IoT platform, its products can also be sold outside of China under Sensity’s existing platform program.
CAS Smart City and Sensity will both contribute capital, technology and human resources to the new company. The joint venture is expected to be operational in Q3 2016.

“The Chinese Smart City market will be the largest and fastest growing in the world. Today,
more than 500 cities in China have announced their plans to implement Smart City systems,” said Dr. Feng Yuan, Director of CAS Smart City. “This agreement represents a unique relationship between two leading Chinese and U.S. companies in the IoT industry focused on smart cities and sets the foundation for China’s 13th Five Year Plan focused on deploying critical infrastructure. Together, CAS Smart City and Sensity will leverage their respective strengths to create significant value, not only for the two organizations involved, but also for the customers, distributors, OEMs and other agents throughout China.”

“The issues confronting cities, such as pollution, traffic congestion, energy consumption and
threats of terrorism, are similar around the globe. Further, in our increasingly interconnected world, actions of one country may impact other countries. We need a common platform and standards to allow applications and services to be leveraged to help solve city and environmental problems globally,” said Hugh Martin, Chairman and CEO of Sensity. “Up until now, given China’s requirements for Smart City solutions, there has not been a way to bridge Smart City work underway in China with that of the rest of the world. By forming a joint venture that can leverage the best of Sensity and CAS Smart City, along with application compatibility, we can both help accelerate the creation of an optimal Smart City platform for China, and at the same time ensure a global marketplace for software application developers to help address common problems in a similar way.”

New York Signing Ceremony

Communist Party Secretary of Guangdong Province, Hu Chunhua will preside over a signing
ceremony between Sensity Chairman and CEO, Hugh Martin and Director of CAS Smart City, Dr. Feng Yuan on May 13, 2016 in New York. The agreements outline the formation of the new CAS Smart City and Sensity joint venture, and other related documents.