Developing inter-connected smart cities

To connect the nodes along the Digital Silk Road, smart cities play a key role – collecting all varieties of electronic data via sensors so that assets and resources can be managed more efficiently.

Peter Young, international partnerships manager at Future Cities Catapult, said that competition and openness was key to trying to build a successful smart city.

"We take the data from the city authorities, from the water systems, energy systems, transport systems, and make that open so that different companies can start to use that to produce new applications to solve city problems," Young said.

The problems faced by many cities wanting to become smart cities is making sure that all the infrastructure, networks and management are in place. For many older cities this is expensive and involves replacing entire systems and ways of management.

That will not be a problem for Neom in Saudi Arabia. The city, which is yet to be built, will install smart city infrastructure from the ground up and serve as an example for all others that follow.

Mohammed Al-Meshekah, deputy minister of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in Saudi Arabia, said that the $500-billion city on the Red Sea coast with be entirely focused around information communication technology.

Trading places in e-commerce

The third session of the Digital Silk Road Forum turned to the role that cross-border e-commerce plays in promoting international cooperation.

RJ Pittman, chief product officer for internet retailer eBay, remarked that the company's first ever online transaction was a cross-border trade back in 1995.

But just because a cross-border e-commerce platform is developed doesn't mean that there will be instant success. Liu Qiangdong, founder of JD.com said that competition in Europe and the US is fierce and that selling products from that market to that market is nearly impossible.

"Instead we can bring Chinese brands overseas in big batches such as Huawei and Xiaomi," Liu said. "Through this way, I believe in the future we will be able to compete in the US and on the European market."

Brand building is also key to attracting overseas customers. Xiaomi struggled on the international market for a long time before it became a success. Lei Jun, founder of the company, said that it had lost almost $1 billion before it decided to focus on a single overseas market to build overseas brand allegiance.

"We entered the Indian market and after three years we became number one," Lei said. "We can use the Digital Silk Road as a sample market to enter Europe and the US."

Lei said that Chinese brands have to build themselves up gradually so that they can become international brands, starting in the markets closer to home. India is an ideal market for Chinese companies, according to Lei, with more than 60 percent of all products sold in India coming from China.

"We want to transplant Chinese business models and ideas into other countries," Lei said.