The Shandong Provincial Big Data Bureau – based in Jinan, capital city of East China’s Shandong province – has since May been organizing the collating and selection of examples or cases of leading smart cities in the region.

On Oct 18 the bureau released a list of the smart cities in accordance with four sub-categories – "excellent governance people-orientation, business start-up policies and the strengthening of basic facilities" – at a conference.

Local media reports said a group of 16 examples among the total 84 cases in the province – from the Shinan district of Qingdao city in the province – made it onto the list.

The cases all had attractive qualities such as Party building, social security, COVID-19 controls, reviewing processes for finance, intellectual property rights, smart parking, 5G technology applications, smart community, "internet + diagnosis" and the building economy and smart port.

Of these, the case of a "5G + remote robotic urology" medical platform – proposed by Qingdao Mobile Company – was invited to share its experiences during the conference.