China looks set to become the world's biggest market for the Internet of things by its sheer weight of numbers.
Almost 19% of the global population lives in China with 1.3 billion people. (It was 1 383 492 538 to be exact, according to the United Nations for Wednesday, September 7).
Once the Internet of things truly takes off, this is where the action will be.
Take ordinary lifts, or elevators, for example, which one billion people do every day. Huawei has announced an agreement with the famous lift manufacturer Schindler to put intelligence into lifts to keep them safe and well maintained.
Swift Liu, the president of Huawei's Enterprise Network Product Line, said there are currently 15 million elevators around the world, and China is buying 68% of all new output to match the massive pace of construction in its cities. With Shanghai's impressive skyline and the endless sprawl of suburban apartment blocks, it's easy to see that lift repairmen must be struggling to keep up with routine maintenance.
The Internet of things will make that task far easier, with controls that can constantly monitor the state of the equipment and electronics and flag any pending problems before they materialise.
Huawei's connected solutions for elevators offer centralised management and four layers of security to make sure malicious code can't be injected. Lui estimates that the technology will reduce maintenance costs by 50%.
Information panels in the lifts could also be used to give people information about the shops and offices in the building.
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