A billion-yuan bill to make Shanghai's Expo high tech

SHANGHAI will invest about 1 billion yuan (US$147 million) in information technology equipment and services during Shanghai World Expo 2010, mainly to improve security, next-generation networks and energy management systems, the expo office's IT director said yesterday.

The total investment for the operation, excluding the infrastructure construction budget, is expected to reach 10.6 billion yuan for the Expo. IT spending will account for 10 percent of the total budget, said Zhou Weidong, the IT office director of the Bureau of the Shanghai World Expo Coordination.

"Take the video monitoring systems - there will be several kinds of monitors including monitors on balloons," Zhou said.

"Many of the security cameras will be on the visitors but we will try our best to keep them hidden and not intrusive."

Other IT applications include air conditioning sensors, energy consumption management, ticketing and security, Zhou added.

The actual IT spending of the expo will be more than 10 billion yuan as sponsors and partners are covering the costs of some systems. For example, Shanghai Teleco and Shanghai Mobile are providing telecommunications services, from 3G, Wi-Fi to emergency communications, for the event.

Other IT partners include IBM, Cisco and Tencent. Zhou said the bureau is close to signing a partnership agreement with a "personal computer giant."

The bureau has also signed agreements with the Shanghai Pudong Software Park Co, the city's biggest software industry base.