Net City will have autonomous vehicles, sensors and large green spaces
Chinese technology company Tencent wants to “reimagine the future of cities” and is building an Internet-inspired campus roughly the size of Midtown Manhattan for its employees in Shenzhen.
Global architectural firm NBBJ has been selected to design the 2-million-square-metre development, which is named ‘Net City’ and will have many of the features associated with the latest crop of master-planned developments, including autonomous vehicles, sensors and large green spaces.
Net City is one of several tech-company-led smart city districts in development around the world, including Toyota’s Woven City in Japan and Belmont, Arizona, which is backed by Bill Gates. Last month, Sidewalk Labs, which was set up by Google’s owner Alphabet, abandoned plans to create a smart neighbourhood in a disused area of Toronto’s Quayside district, citing “unprecedented economic uncertainty”.
Tencent has commissioned the project for the 320-acre peninsula along the Dachanwan port area as it anticipates that its existing properties and office spaces will soon no longer meet its needs.
