IDC Future Enterprise Awards: Special Award for Smart Cities - Best in Digital Policies Award Winner Profile 2025

To support Shenzhen's digital twin and next-generation e-governance, the Shenzhen Big Data Resource Management Center tackled scattered and aging datacenters, fragmented networks, and siloed clouds. With a Huawei-led architecture, it created a three-site, four-center resilient base, high-capacity wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network, and cloud platform, including AI model management. Benefits span costs, carbon, and service speed. It also sets a foundation for agentic AI. "Shenzhen City's approach demonstrates that effective digital policy is ultimately an infrastructure challenge as much as a governance one. By consolidating fragmented datacenters, building a unified cloud, and deploying a low-latency network architecture, the city has created a scalable digital backbone that supports real-time services, digital twins, and emerging AI workloads. This platform-led approach enables governments to improve citizen experience while maintaining operational resilience and cost efficiency," says Ravikant Sharma, research director, IDC Public Sector."Shenzhen shows that strong digital policy execution depends on disciplined platform design and operations. By aligning resilient infrastructure, a unified cloud, and a programmable low-latency network, the city is better positioned to scale digital twin and agentic AI use cases while keeping security, service quality, and costs under control," says Manoj Vallikkat, senior research manager, IDC Public Sector.