SHIJIAZHUANG - Xiongan New Area, a new economic zone to be built southwest of Beijing, has teamed up with e-commerce giant Alibaba to build itself into a smart city.

The Xiongan New Area management committee and Alibaba signed a strategic cooperation agreement here Wednesday to jointly build "a city brain" run by artificial intelligence for Xiongan.

The smart city will have "cloud computing" as its most important infrastructure and the iternet of things will serve its nerves system.

The two sides aim to build Xiongan into a digital city and global icon in the application of "the internet of things" technology.

The internet of things and big data processing technology will be used to help plan and manage the city's consumption, production and supply chains, creating secure digital logistics system for the city.

The "city brain" is expected to provide better solutions for the city's transport, energy and water supply.

Also on Wednesday, Alibaba announced the registration in Xiongan of three subsidiary companies, to provide technological, financial and logistics services, respectively.

China announced plans in April to establish Xiongan New Area, a new economic zone about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing. It covers Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin counties in Hebei province.