IBM Supplies Cloud System for Chinese City

IBM in a joint announcement Sept. 24 with the local government of Dongying, China, introduced a project under the banner of its Smarter Planet initiative that will make use of cloud computing in an effort to improve economic development in the region.

The municipality of Dongying will deploy IBM's new CloudBurst software and services package to run the region's planned Yellow River Delta Cloud Computing Center.

The cloud system will provide software development and test resources for software startup companies via a self-service Web interface, IBM said. In addition, the cloud later will be expanded to become a government services platform for the Dongying economic development zone as well as an R&D platform for eco-friendly oil cultivation. 

Dongying is home to China's second-largest oil field and has relied on manufacturing and oil production as staples of its economy for generations. The city wants to use the CloudBurst system to promote e-government and to support the city's transition from an industrial to a services-based economy, IBM said.

"The national policy to develop the Yellow River Delta marks new opportunities for Dongying, and meanwhile raises newer and higher requirements on informationalization," Li Jinkun, vice mayor of Dongying, said at a news conference.

"The Smarter City initiative proposed by IBM is the blueprint of a new city that we are trying to develop and keep improving. Dongying expects to become a real 'City of Digital Innovation' with the help of IBM Cloud Computing," Jinkun said.