Huawei Says Wants to Support India's Smart Cities Initiative

China's Huawei Technologies wants to play an important role in helping India build Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure for the development of smart cities, a senior company executive said here today.

"We will be able to help India build ICT infrastructure including wireless systems and the computing platforms for the smart cities," said Joe So, Chief Technology Officer for Industry Solutions at Huawei in Shenzhen head office.

"We can help build the inter-dependency of the Indian system," he said, stressing on Huawei's strength in building ICT infrastructure.

He noted the similarity between India and China, especially based on the huge population in major cities. India's smart cities should also adopt ICT, he urged.

Citing examples, So pointed out the use of ICT in Chinese cities has helped reduce crime rates significantly. The Indian smart cities could also use ICT for similar use, said So who addressed the Huawei Innovation Day held in Singapore today.

Elaborating, he said India would not be able to use a one standard plan for building 100 smart cities as each major region is different from the other.

Each city must be planned based on its structure and people's needs such as New Delhi being a government and agencies centre and Mumbai being a commercial hub.

So said he will also be highlighting Huawei's technologies in a keynote address to the Smart-Safe City conference to be held in Bangaluru on December 19.

He will focus on Huawei's technologies for India, rated as its second largest market outside China. Huawei employs 6,200 people in India, having set up office in 1999.