Developing Macao as a smart city to optimise services to the public

The cooperation with Alibaba Group to further the Government’s efforts on the development of a smart city aims to boost social well-being and enhance the quality of the city’s services to the public, thus helping to make Macao a more liveable city.

The Government and Alibaba Group signed on 4 August a “Framework Agreement of Strategic Cooperation on Smart City Development”, encompassing a series of projects to upgrade Macao’s development in the fields of cloud computing and big data technology, spanning from 2017 to 2021 The agreement aims.

The Government’s decision to partner with Alibaba Group – via direct contract awarding – was done in accordance with existing legislation; and the absence of a tendering exercise was in conformity with existing regulations, as the project is considered to be of utmost importance and highly beneficial to the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR).

Building Macao as a smart city is a Government policy outlined in the city’s Five-Year Development Plan. After publishing the Five-Year Development Plan, the Government initiated a comprehensive research and analysis regarding digitalisation development, while searching for the best possible candidate among eligible companies in the market to provide support services to implement this policy.

After more than six months of discussions and exchanges, the Government decided to sign a Framework Agreement with Alibaba Group, specifying the main areas of cooperation and the key objectives of the partnership. The budget for each specific project to be developed under the Framework Agreement will be supported by the Government’s budget for each respective fiscal year.

The Government always adheres to the Basic Law and other regulations in terms of managing the city’s financial resources. In the 2017 fiscal year budget, the Government allocated a total of 500 million patacas to foster the development of the city’s information technology sector. According to preliminary estimates, the Government will allocate about 200 million patacas in each of the next two years to implement projects related to the development of Macao as a smart city.

Alibaba Cloud – a unit of Alibaba Group – is the largest provider of cloud computing services in China and a leading company in this field, with clients in more than 200 countries and cities worldwide. Alibaba Cloud has strong big data processing capabilities and a wealth of experience on technology-based governance. In addition, the company – which employs highly-trained professionals and experts – has been providing cloud computing technologies to a number of governments and leading technology companies.

As a SAR of the People’s Republic of China, Macao pays great attention to information security, regional security and data security, as these are understood to be key issues relating to national security. In this regard, Alibaba Cloud is a widely-recognised service provider in the Asia-Pacific region. The company has received several international certifications and awards, including: the ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 Information technology – Service Management Certification; the Multi-Tier Cloud Security (MTCS) Singapore Standard; the widely-adopted global security standard ISO27001; and the world’s first gold award in the CSA STAR Certification, jointly granted by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and the international Cloud Security Alliance (CSA).

The company’s cloud platform and big data management systems are highly compatible with different systems, meaning that the Government would not need to change its existing systems.

Under the Framework Agreement, the Government and Alibaba Group will jointly build a cloud computing data centre in Macao. The Government will have ownership of the entire facility, its equipment, systems, platforms, algorithms, and – in particular – of any data collected and stored in the cloud computing data centre. Alibaba Group will only provide technical support, without having access to any Government data, which is to be stored in Macao and not be transferred overseas.

The Government attaches great importance to the protection of the SAR’s data and of personal data of individuals in Macao. The existing Personal Data Protection Act is in line with the strictest standards set by the European Union. The data to be processed and stored in the city’s future cloud computing facilities will have to undergo anonymisation in order to ensure privacy protection, and such systems will be under the supervision of Macao’s Office for Personal Data Protection.

The Framework Agreement also includes cooperation projects related to supporting the development of Macao’s professionals in the field of information technology. Alibaba Group is to launch certificate programmes to train more professionals in business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce and Alibaba Cloud information technology.

The Government will also facilitate cooperation between local universities and, respectively, the company’s “Alibaba Cloud University Cooperation Programme” and “Taobao University”, to help improve the skills of local students in the fields of cloud computing, big data processing, artificial intelligence and e-commerce.

Cooperation plan defined under the Framework Agreement: