The bureau of industry and information technology of Zhanjiang has been promoting the construction of new-type information infrastructure like 5G, industrial internet, and data centers in recent years, boosting the city's industrial production.

By the end of 2019, the total telecommunications service volume reached 44.66 billion yuan ($6.36 billion), ranking first in the eastern, western, and northern parts of Guangdong province. Optical fiber users accounted for 96.9 percent of the city's total population, second in Guangdong.

To date, the city has built 18,700 4G base station. It currently has a 4G network coverage of 100 percent for its administrative villages and a 4G network coverage of more than 99.7 percent for its natural villages.

In the first half of this year, a total of 2,165 5G base stations were constructed in Zhanjiang, making up 99.8 percent of the annual target set by the provincial government for the city. Its total number of 5G base stations is currently 2,545.

The industrial internet command center in Zhanjiang. [Photo/Nanfang Plus]

In addition, Zhanjiang has equipped 20 government districts with gigabit broadband service, as well as more than 500 commercial buildings and residential areas.

The residential areas in the city have basically achieved full coverage of 100M fiber optic networks, while all the administrative villages have been covered by optical fiber networks, as well as over 97 percent of the city's natural villages.

Zhanjiang is also planning to build a big data industrial park and a digital valley in western Guangdong, which will create a data center for 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), industrial internet, and cloud computing.

The improvement of information infrastructure in Zhanjiang has driven the industrial manufacturing industry and other traditional industries to develop towards digitalization, networking, and intellectualization.

A batch of benchmarking projects in the application of 5G plus industrial internet has been created in the city, such as Baosteel Zhanjiang Iron and Steel Co and the BASF (Guangdong) Verbund Site project.

Baosteel Zhanjiang is one of the first eight 5G plus industrial internet application demonstration parks in the province. It has established a 5G independent core private network and has applied several pieces of cutting edge equipment, including the online detection and diagnosis system for draught fans, 5G plus mobile video monitoring, as well as remote-operation robotic arms.