China’s Buildings Are WatchingHow People Shop, Cook and Steal
Bloomberg News— With assistance by Dingmin Zhang, and Emma Dong
Fintech is changing the way people borrow, invest and pay for things. But there’s another type of
technology — most noticeably in China — that’s altering the way urban dwellers interact with their
living and shopping environments.
It’s property technology, or proptech — the use of new technologies like big data and machine
learning to help individuals and companies buy, sell and manage real estate.
According to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., investment into proptech startups from 2013 to 2017 totalled
$7.8 billion, with China accounting for about 36% of that. In 2018, that figure came to almost $20
billion, data from market research firm Venture Scanner show.
“In China, there is a very dynamic proptech ecosystem, quite mature and advanced at all levels,”
Jones Lang LaSalle’s Asia Chief Executive Officer Anthony Couse said at the firm’s first-ever proptech
forum in Beijing in May. “Some say we’re slow moving, conservative,” he said, referring to the realestate industry. “I don’t think that applies to us here in China.”
One oft-cited reason for China’s proptech leadership is that the country tends to put more emphasis
on convenience than privacy. That makes it easier for property companies to use transaction
databases, facial-recognition cameras and other technology to improve people’s shopping and living
experiences, though developers still have to be mindful how they access and use personal data to
avoid allegations of overreach.
Here’s a snapshot of some of the ways that Chinese developers are using the internet of things,
artificial intelligence and big data to improve people’s living and shopping experiences:
Cooking with Gas
Dalian Wanda Group Co. upgraded its property management platforms at two Wanda Plazas by
installing cameras that use behaviour-recognition technology to track shoppers’ movements inside
the mall, such as how long a person lingers in a store and whether they walk out with a bag in their
hand.
The technology, from Wanda’s Huiyun management system, allows the group to capture and analyse
a person’s age, gender and shopping patterns, letting the landlord better optimize merchant layouts.
Shoppers don’t know it, but they’re also assigned a computerized ID, so they’re recognized upon their
next visit. Sensitive information, including people’s facial images, isn’t stored to prevent the risk of
personal privacy infringement issues and potential legal disputes, the company says.
The Huiyun technology now tracks conditions in about 280 Wanda Plazas across China, using more
than 10,000 sensors in each of them. The sensors also detect heat and moisture levels, air quality and
energy consumption. They’re able to compare signals from a cook and the range hood in a restaurant,
for example, and flash alerts when a stove is left unattended without being switched off.
Dalian Wanda also uses proptech when designing its shopping malls. The software can construct a
three-dimensional model using inputs from the designer and contractor throughout the construction
process to maximize efficiency and ensure quality. The technology enables the company to turn a
bare site into a shopping mall, with every store open, within 18 months of breaking ground. That
compares to around two years of construction alone for a project of a similar size.
Feeding the Fish
Putting sensors around its residential communities has allowed Longfor Group Holdings Ltd. to shift
away from a labour-heavy property management system. Developed by the Beijing-based home
builder’s service arm using internet-of-things technology, the system has trimmed labour costs on
facilities maintenance by as much as 62%.
Some 480,000 facilities with sensors at developments nationwide capture data and send it to a
central processing facility. The information can range from lower apartment floors being soaked by
summer storms, to an elevator being out of order, or a man-hole cover shifting and potentially
endangering passers-by.
If enough data creates a warning, alerts are sent out to maintenance workers in the field who can pick
up the job, similar to Uber drivers accepting a booking.
Where manual adjustment isn’t required, automation kicks in. At some developments, water sprays
are automatically triggered if sensors deduce that a plot of lawn is too dry. In one residential
community in Chongqing, trash cans automatically compress garbage, paring sanitation workers’
emptying frequency to a fifth of usual levels.
What does Longfor do with the employees its technology has put out of work? The company uses
them to provide next-level service for residents. An executive who travels a lot can ask these newly
trained butlers to feed her fish while she’s away, or elderly people can be walked outside in their
wheelchairs every morning. Residents can even rate these stewards, as Longfor calls them, using an
app.
Brand Awareness
Using facial recognition technology, Shui On Land Ltd. started to use an app called “INNO” for access
control in its Shanghai office buildings. A surprising finding emerged at one city-centre tower: 70% of
workers were female. So Shui On renovated one of its shopping malls — Xintiandi Plaza — below this
office area, tailoring an entire five floors just for women.
At the Xintiandi Plaza in Shanghai, visitors can get brand recommendations based on previous shopping habits. Source: Shui
On Land Ltd.
Apart from adding new stores from New York-based, Taiwanese-born fashion designer Jason Wu and
Israeli cosmetics brand AHAVA, two of the upper floors have been remodelled to resemble a fancy
showroom: In one corner, a chic kitchenette extends to a home decoration store, while a shop for
outbound travel site qyer.com sits next to a bookstore.
To further attract female shoppers, Shui On uses big data for distributing coupons and mall maps.
First-time visitors can enter their mobile number at a fourth-floor screen to link to their WeChat
account, giving Shui On access to their buying habits on Tencent Holdings Ltd., WeChat’s parent
company. Immediately, discount coupons are sent direct to a person’s WeChat Pay wallet, making a
cup of coffee cheaper or car parking free. The screen also offers brand suggestions based on previous
shopping habits. The whole process is paired with facial recognition technology, so second-time
visitors need only to stand still in front of the screen.
Shui On is also using proptech in a trial to assist tenants. Sensors, for example, can capture how many
times a hesitant customer picks a book up and sets it down — useful information a store can use to
reorganize displays and accelerate sales.
Safety First
At almost 1,000 residential projects
managed by Country Garden
Holdings Co.’s affiliated service unit
across China, video surveillance
cameras capture footage three
times a minute, gathering real-time
pictures ranging from what guards
are doing to whether non-residents
are intruding upon private property.
The pictures are then sliced and diced into numerous data bits and sent to a cloud-based artificial
intelligence platform that the service arm co-developed with Tencent in 2018.
This picture data from properties spanning 500 million square meters can help staff monitor multiple
situations — more than could be captured from a few cameras — in real time. The analysis can also
trigger automatic maintenance alerts, such as a full trash bin needing to be emptied.
Should a child be lost, the computer algorithms use behaviour-analysis technology to help guards
locate them sooner. It’s also allowed Country Garden’s services arm to cut the total number of
management staff working at its residential projects by a third, according to Yuan Hongkai, its chief
information officer.
Source: Bloomburg. All images as supplied in the article.
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