SHENZHEN Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced a strategic partnership with Internet giant Tencent on Tuesday, Shenzhen Economic Daily reported yesterday.

The two sides will upgrade and establish four smart platforms covering disease control, public health service, big data analysis and public health emergency prevention and control management.

Relying on its cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and other technical capabilities, Tencent will help Shenzhen CDC comprehensively improve its operational and management efficiency, scientific research on disease control, public health emergency preparedness and response, and multi-agency collaboration.

The strategic cooperation will also enable Shenzhen CDC to unify its top-level design and technical structure. Tencent Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Tencent, will serve as both an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and a PaaS (Platform as a Service) provider for Shenzhen CDC.

Meanwhile, Tencent will help Shenzhen CDC optimize investment in informatization and improve information security, data processing ability, and intelligent service ability, so as to lay a foundation for the subsequent optimization and upgrading of services.

The tech giant will also provide products and services for disease analysis and health analysis of urban population by playing to its strengths in big data and AI, and offer technical support to Shenzhen CDC so that the latter can better prepare for and cope with public health emergencies.

The two sides will work together to build a public health science popularization and education platform for the general public, as well as a public health training and education platform for grass-roots medical workers. (Zhang Yu)