Hangzhou City Brain Operation Command Center.Photo: Chen Zhongqiu
By Zhu Jingning
Last week, Hangzhou announced plans to develop City Brain 3.0, the latest iteration of its groundbreaking urban intelligence system. Since its conceptual debut in 2016, the City Brain has steadily evolved through versions 1.0 and 2.0, emerging as Hangzhou’s contribution to global smart city development. The current system integrates 25 comprehensive scenarios and monitors 475 urban health indicators, significantly enhancing city governance efficiency.
While version 1.0 focused on digital solutions for traffic management, urban governance, and pandemic response, and version 2.0 established a digital framework for megacity administration, version 3.0 aims to build an “urban intelligent entity”. This new phase will prioritize advances in intelligent core systems, operating systems for urban governance, digital twin city development, and the cultivation of a data element market.
The concept of an “intelligent entity” refers to systems capable of perceiving environments, making autonomous decisions through learned algorithms, and taking proactive action. A notable example is “Hangzhou Sweet Dream”, China’s first AI mental health specialist developed by the Municipal Health Commission. Modeled after leading sleep expert Dr. Mao Hongjing, this AI agent handles 17,000 consultations daily--peaking at 20,000--with an accuracy rate of 90%, compared to just 10,000 annual in-person visits by human experts. It effectively gives each citizen a “personal doctor”, solving the long-standing shortage of specialist appointments.
Another breakthrough is the Civil Affairs Bureau’s “Hangzhou Civic Star”, an always-on AI assistant powered by City Brain and integrated with leading models like DeepSeek. This system reduces the average consultation time from 10 minutes to under 60 seconds, easing staffing shortages in grassroots governance through improved training and streamlined operations.
As Hangzhou pioneers this new frontier of urban intelligence, the world is watching to see how these “evolving entities” will redefine the future of city governance and citizen services.