February 21, Berlin, Germany – Bosch, a leading global supplier of technology and services, today signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Country Garden Holdings Company Limited, China’s leading residential and mixed-use property developer at the 2018 Bosch ConnectedWorld Conference in Berlin, Germany. Through the cooperation, the two partners will explore possibilities and collaborations in the rapidly expanding field of smart cities in China.

Featured Towns and Smart Living Lab planned

Leveraging the resources and capabilities of their respective businesses, Bosch and Country Garden will collaborate on building Featured Towns in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, the Pearl River Delta area, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and other regions in China. The establishment of these towns is part of the Chinese urban planning and real estate development in order to improve quality of life and boost regional economies. Featured Towns are known for their "one town, one industry" policy with each town specializing in one core business while implementing a smart infrastructure.

In addition, the two parties will also work to establish the Bosch-Country Garden Smart Living Lab. The lab will integrate showrooms, training, applications, incubator projects and the opportunity to experience Bosch technology in one space in order to create more intelligent products and solutions for Featured Towns and smart communities.

About the cooperation partners

With 25 years of experience in the field of residential development and construction in China, Country Garden are experts in this new era of domestic urbanization, and the group’s leading industry experience will provide a solid foundation for the new smart city cooperation.

As an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) company, Bosch’s sensors, software and services will serve as key industrial competences in the joint development of smart communities, buildings, security, homes, connected parking, environmental protection and Industry 4.0 solutions in China. These capabilities will bolster the strategic new smart city cooperation, helping support Country Garden in building leading Featured Towns across the country. Together, the partners will work to promote the budding concept of smart cities in China.

Bosch is helping the vision of smart cities become a reality

Bosch is currently involved in 14 extensive smart city projects around the world in cities like San Francisco, Singapore, Tianjin, Berlin and Stuttgart, to name a few — with a host of other smart city projects on the horizon. Through these projects, the company is working to better equip cities and neighborhoods for the future, offering smart mobility, enhanced air quality, added convenience, greater security, and a variety of other leading new-age services.

Through its community-based parking concept, Bosch is able to enhance smart mobility and simplify the search for parking spaces in cities and urban communities. The company’s automated valet parking takes smart mobility a step further—enabling cars to park themselves without any action needed from the driver. With this advanced function, drivers can leave their vehicle at the entrance to a parking garage and send a simple command from their smartphone app to complete the parking sequence.

Bosch also offers leading solutions in the areas of energy, buildings, security and digital city administration. Bosch’s IoT suite enables more efficient building management through a connected building platform that analyzes data from building technology and sensors regarding factors like air quality and human activity. Through this platform, the company supports an informed, data-driven, smart approach to building management and decision-making. Bosch is also a pioneer in smart home sensor technology and software. Smart homes strive to further enhance the quality of life for urban communities and residents, and Bosch is at the forefront of this movement.

Without the development of the connected industry, smart cities are not likely to succeed. But by drawing on its manufacturing experience across business sectors, and the practical application of Industry 4.0 advancements, Bosch offers an integrated Industry 4.0 solution with hardware and software for companies of different sizes across different industries to make the connected industry a reality.

Connectivity strategy driving smart cities forward

The development of smart cities is closely linked to the IoT. As the only company that is active in all three areas of IoT—sensors, software and services—Bosch has a unique advantage in the future IoT market.

To date, Bosch has already implemented nearly 100 IoT projects. By 2020, all of the electronic products in Bosch’s portfolio will be fully web-enabled and connected.

Connectivity is changing Bosch’s business and, subsequently, the company’s personnel requirements. Today, the Bosch Group employs 400,500 people and has already hired nearly 20,000 software and IT specialists around the globe.