IDG is reporting that Foxconn, the largest contract electronics maker in the world (they make almost everything you own. Seriously), is working with IBM to modernize factories in China. They’re planning on spending a “few billion” on new technologies including LED lighting and solar panels.
Gou’s company already runs several massive factory complexes in China that operate as small cities in their own right, housing tens of thousands of workers in dormitories and feeding them in cafeterias. IBM Smart City software, meant to make more efficient use of city resources such as water, transportation, surveillance and more, will be used at the factory complexes first, then at a new digital city.
“We want to build smart cities,” he said, declining to name the location of the first for fear land prices in the area would immediately rise.
Another city, Songdo, is following a similar plan in South Korea.