A robot at an affordable price that helps cook meals is no longer a dream, the president of China Mobile Communication Corporation, Wang Jianzhou, said at the Urban Development Forum in Ningbo over the weekend.

The Forum brought together industry leaders from around the world to discuss the future of information and communication technology (ICT) and advances in Internet use on the sidelines of the Shanghai Expo.

"It can be either wireless or 3G - ordinary people don't care what kind of technology they're using," said Wang. "The most important thing is how those applications, based on the technology, improve their way of living."

He said that many cities are already trying to make use of 3G technologies to build wireless cities, including Wuxi, Shanghai and Beijing, among other major cities, have all put forward ambitious plans to become leaders in the sector.

Zhao Hongzhu, Party chief of Zhejiang province, said that the Internet of Things (IOT) and other future technologies "present a brilliant future for urban life".

The IOT technology is based on the concept that, if all objects of daily life, from yoghurt to an airplane, are equipped with radio tags, they can be identified and managed by computers in the same way humans can.

Things like running out of stock or wasted products will no longer exist as we will know exactly what is being consumed on the other side of the globe.

Many of China's leading technological companies are backing the government's IOT development drive, which was first proposed by Premier Wen Jiabao in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, last year.

"IOT will definitely be a big part of the next wave of the information technology revolution, just like the Internet was," said Wang, who cited a wide range of services provided or promised by IOT technologies, including "intelligent home appliances" and smart buses that are already undergoing trials in some cities.

Li Yizhong, minister of industry and information technology, in his opening speech at the Forum, said that China should accelerate the development of the IOT industry to create a new platform for economic growth.

However, Wang cautioned that the IOT sector is still in its infancy and the absence of technological standardization was a major obstacle to its adoption.

Other senior scientists and engineers also added a note of caution.

"IOT is nothing but an extension of existing technologies. More attention needs to be paid toward its applications," Liu Jiren, chairman of China's largest software outsourcing firm Neusoft, said on the sidelines of the forum.

Liu said that there were still obstacles to overcome before IOT related ideas could be translated into specific products or applications for the mass market, adding that the process of commercialization has yet to start.

Another challenge to the healthy development of the IOT sector in China is a lack of national planning. "There are risks of overcapacity and redundancy, as coordination between local governments is lacking," said Wu Hequan, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

There should be a cohesive nationwide plan for research and development of IOT technologies to raise efficiency and avoid wasting talent, said Wu.

Wu also cautioned that, "IOT represents a major trend in the technological revolution, but we should work to prevent a bubble."

Jiang Mianheng, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "People should keep a cool head while investing in the IOT sector."

Both of them said the current interest in IOT was reminiscent of the dot-com bubble, which came about in the mid-1990s - only to burst five years later.

(China Daily May 17, 2010)