Wanxiang Innovation Energy City Wang Yunwei: Building a smart city to test the token economy

At the 2nd Global Blockchain Summit in 2016, Wanxiang Group announced an investment of 200 billion yuan and joined hands with many innovative institutions to build a smart town in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou, namely Wanxiang Innovation Energy City. This is a smart city driven by blockchain technology, relying on cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence to achieve 90,000 people to learn, research, manufacture and live. On September 18th, at the 5th Global Summit of Blockchain sponsored by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab, Wang Yunzhen, Chief Innovation Officer of Wanxiang Innovation and Energy City, published a titled “Blockchain Innovation: “From an Ecosystem To a great city" keynote speech.

Wang Yunqi pointed out in his speech that the three characteristics of Wanxiang Innovation Energy City are intelligent infrastructure, distributed urban intelligence and digital economy, and token-based platform based on tokens and very complex blockchains. Technology includes innovations in blockchains and the Internet of Things. He said that although everyone has been in the blockchain field, the answer to the future of the blockchain three years ago, a year ago and now is very different. So it's not that the logic of blockchain technology is wrong, or blockchain technology is developing so fast, but because our ideas have changed, the development of technology may encounter social or market limitations.

He believes that in the construction of smart cities, technology updates are often very fast, and technical design is also from top to bottom, but the city actually has a completely different time and level, and the large-scale urban transformation often needs to maintain five or six. Ten years, but the technology changes every three or four years, so the time nodes are completely different. In addition, the data silo problem also makes the top-down data architecture not feasible. From a technical logic point of view, the blockchain is the storage of trusted data; integrating the technical logic into the economic logic is the token economy. We want to build a smart city to test the token economy. Simultaneous operation logic and business logic allow us to create a new business model. When you walk into a city, understand your personal behavior, understand their needs and economy, and the interests of business entities, as well as the interests of the government, we need to integrate these interests on a blockchain platform.

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The following is the full text of the speech:

Today I want to talk about a smart town in Hangzhou – Wanxiang Innovation Energy City, and the strategy and purpose behind its ecosystem, in fact, is the system around the blockchain ecology. In 2014, when we first participated in the blockchain, we came up with a very clear strategy to identify some key nodes in the ecosystem, one by one, to build a complete ecosystem. This not only allows us to establish a blockchain position in China and the world, but also promotes the vigorous development of blockchain communities and blockchain ecosystems in China. We first set up the Wanxiang blockchain laboratory, on the basis of which we began to develop our technological advantages, such as industrial traceability, etc.; then made some investments to contribute to various industries; now we also hope to pass the universal innovation Energy City has built the infrastructure for data.

In terms of blockchain, how do you achieve today's results? First, we have developed a very broad innovation strategy that includes several aspects: first, the sensitivity to the synergistic effects of logical relationships such as urban development, industry and business applications, and social behavior. Second, we must balance the relationship between our core competencies and ecosystems; we need to know not only what core capabilities should be built internally, but also what we can achieve through cooperation in the community. balance. Third, maintain a pragmatic attitude and be ready to adjust strategies.

These three points are very important. Because although everyone has been in the blockchain field, the answer to the future of the blockchain three years ago, a year ago and now is quite different. So it's not that the logic of blockchain technology is wrong, or blockchain technology is developing so fast, but because our ideas have changed, the development of technology may encounter social or market limitations.

First of all, we started a two-pronged transformation based on the Wanxiang blockchain community. We are now in the midst of transformation. The first is the core of the business. 65% of the revenue comes from the automotive industry. In fact, many manufacturing infrastructures are still Brownfield projects, how to convert to Greenfield. project? It is a data-driven, innovative industry facility, which is still a problem. This is closely related to the logic of the blockchain, transforming the industry or manufacturing through a distributed network. In the two-pronged approach, in our transformation, our business portfolio is still diversified, such as the financial industry and the renewable energy industry. Wanxiang Holding Co., Ltd. is responsible for the financial industry, and we are still a pivotal company in the financial industry. These two aspects or the mother ship of this transformation is the area where we landed – the innovative energy city.

The intelligent manufacturing, distributed urban intelligence, and digital economy contained in the innovative energy city are token-based platforms based on tokens that are based on very complex blockchains. The enabling technologies include blockchain and internet of things. Innovation. I have talked about Wanxiang's progress in the Internet of Things. We have cooperated with the American Industrial Internet Alliance (IIC). We laughed. "For us, IOT is not the Internet of Things, but intelligent operation. Technology (Intelligent Operational Technology). If you come from the IT industry, you will know that the relationship between OT and IT is not tight, and we are proposing to seamlessly integrate OT and IT innovation.

After deep reflection, we found that our work focus has been reflected in the planning of Wanxiang Innovation Energy City. We must identify emerging technologies with potential, such as blockchains, the Internet of Things, edge computing, and the design thinking of new ecosystems. Design thinking is very important. In the past, the concept of smart city, you will not see the consideration of economic activities, or consideration of social behavior, but this is the blockchain can empower us and more clearly define business behavior. Third, pay attention to the key behaviors in the ecosystem. Just like the blockchain, we need to make standards, do industry alliances, and work with partners to be a platform. Fourth, strategic investment in key nodes. We made a fund that is distributed capital, investing in early seed projects or early application projects. Fifth, to promote the synergy between the above nodes, such as accelerators, incubators, we have connected PoC (proof of concept) and real-world deployment to ensure that the team has the right talent and sufficient technical support. Sixth, even point to face. With so many application areas, such as life labs and so on. What is needed now is to establish a business model to drive value transfer related to data flow. So this is some of the experience we have learned so far.

Wanxiang Innovation Energy City is a large-scale urban project covering 2,700 acres in Hangzhou's Dawan District, backed by Qiantang River and very similar to Lujiazui. Our vision is to build 8.3 square kilometers of land into the Kendal Square in China. MIT is located in Kendal Square, Boston. The region's innovation revenue and IPO success rate are among the highest in the world, especially in biotechnology and information technology. We have done a detailed study on the benchmarking of the city. In the past, there have been some examples of smart cities in the world, such as Dubai and South Korea's Songdo New City. I really appreciate their achievements.

At the same time we have seen the challenges they and we will eventually face. Most cities in the process of building a smart city are mainly combining physical infrastructure and technology. But the city actually has a completely different time and level, and the large-scale transformation of the city often lasts for five or six decades, but the technology changes every three or four years, so the time nodes are completely different. How to ensure that smart cities can keep up with the pace of urban development? The design of general smart cities is from top to bottom, which makes the city unable to adjust quickly when the technology develops. There is also a problem island for data problems. Different departments have different data, so you can't do a top-down technology or data architecture, so you must first connect the existing vertical IT infrastructure. Secondly, the interests of shareholders are different. How do residents and visitors integrate them with the activities of the city? Everyone has different concerns about the city, and the contributions they make are different. How to make interests of different stakeholders Consistent, so we need to fully absorb and distinguish the technical logic of stakeholders.

The blockchain is an enabling technology that integrates this technical logic into the economic logic, which is the token economy. So the blockchain not only promotes the exchange of data, but also promotes the transfer of value, so we have to run the token economy on a viable platform. We will build such an innovative energy city to test a micro-token economy. Simultaneous operation logic and business logic allow us to create a new business model. When you walk into a city, understand your personal behavior, understand their needs and economy, and the interests of business entities, as well as the interests of the government, we need to integrate these interests on a blockchain platform. This is the main element, and there is actually no obvious boundary.

We have three districts here, one is smart manufacturing, the second is smart and eco-city, and the third district is international research and innovation base, which mainly provides local innovation capabilities.

From the top and bottom of the two perspectives, we must understand what opportunities the blockchain brings to us, such as big data, cloud rethinking, and data sovereignty. This is a topic of great concern to everyone. It is also difficult for cloud providers to obtain data from industry companies, so the Industrial Internet of Things has experienced that very slow development process. Now that you transfer data to others, you lose the sovereignty of the data, because the data is transferred to other people, and the ownership of the data is transferred. How can we ensure data sovereignty while at the same time allowing data mining or data analysis to create value? The direction we are working now consists of two parts. We divide the stack and the cloud into two layers, one is data collection and data storage, the other is data application, and the middle layer is data hosting. In such a multi-tiered data infrastructure, we can get secure computing to protect privacy. This way, while the data is being acquired, the data is not decrypted into the original data, that is, you can process the encrypted data. Even these intermediaries have no way to control these raw data.

In terms of expansion, we just talked about the concept of cloud, and "underground" we introduced the concept of life laboratory. The first guest talked about the end of the POC era, we agree. It is easy to do POC, but testing or extending POC is a must. If you are in the POC stage forever, there will be no business model. So our solution or our strategy is to use the universal blockchain to build intelligent life, intelligent buildings, smart business life labs at the city level. This blockchain startup team can extend the solution and interact with the local data infrastructure and IOT infrastructure to provide us with feedback that can be continually adjusted. In the end, I hope to see a city that seamlessly connects cities and industries, energy-storage infrastructure, and locally built infrastructure that can provide renewable energy and provide renewable energy at lower cost. A large test field is now being built to test driverless cars. After technical testing, we can enter different urban areas. Different areas of the city have different control rights. On the one hand, cars can operate in an open environment while ensuring safety. The third district is the Kendall Square in Hangzhou that I just mentioned. It is necessary to make full use of local research and innovation capabilities to establish a base for innovation and entrepreneurship. We use blockchain and AI technology, so how to build a residential business and a business park for residential entrepreneurship can benefit all parties.

I just introduced some ideas and what I am doing now, one of which is battery-related. Because in terms of smart manufacturing, we are producing batteries, which is costly for such traction batteries, accounting for more than half of the cost of electric vehicles. After two years, the efficiency will drop by 80%, and the efficiency of charging will be very low. So we have to find a second life for these batteries, how to do it? Wanxiang will recycle these traction batteries and place them in underground energy storage facilities. In this way, we connect renewable energy to the grid, and we will handle it responsibly after the battery reaches its life cycle. The key issue is data silos, and these data silos have no way to connect together unless the blockchain is used. So we didn't have a strong aggregation of data. We used digital finance to design a distributed database that runs on the blockchain. Each node is actually the owner of a data. Such as charging stations, manufacturing sites, underground energy storage facilities, and car manufacturers.

Another case of intelligent building. Smart Buildings We work with a well-known European organization. The challenges they face are that there are too many companies doing smart buildings. After the completion of the building, there is no way to track the energy of the building. It involves too many stakeholders and has been doing repeated work, and the follow-up cannot continue.

The third case is intelligent transportation. We use blockchain to ensure data security. Blockchain is used to ensure data security, and vehicles are used in a credible and secure manner. At the same time, blockchain guarantees cross-domain synergy. It also protects privacy. This is a community that encompasses architecture, operations, management, recycling, and more. Is a complete cycle of data connectivity.

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