BAC NINH: Bac Ninh, a northern province on the outskirts of Hanoi, has set a goal of ranking among the world's top 50 smart cities by 2030, an ambition officials say is central to its broader push to become a centrally governed municipality. Provincial chairman Pham Hoang Son said the smart-city drive would rely on data and digital transformation as its foundation, with residents placed at the centre. The province aims to be listed in recognised global indices such as the IMD Smart City Index, he said. By 2030, Bac Ninh plans to have a provincial coordination mechanism and a data-driven urban governance model fully in place, along with real-time monitoring and management systems operating both province-wide and in key urban centres. Smart-city planning will be woven into all levels of urban development, with officials working toward a City Information Model that can eventually feed into a full digital twin of the province. Health care, environmental management, water and waste services, and transportation are listed as priority areas, alongside investment in telecommunications, cloud and data-centre capacity, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. The province is also drafting a formal ICT architecture for smart-city development, aligned with national standards, and rules for a regulatory sandbox that would let companies trial new technologies under controlled conditions – part of an effort to foster innovation while keeping data security requirements built into projects from the design stage. Officials have grouped the effort into four workstreams. The first sets up a provincial coordination council and a smart-city master plan running from the province down to the commune level. A densely populated area of Bac Giang Ward, Bac Ninh Province. The second builds the ICT architecture. The third upgrades technical infrastructure such as smart transport, lighting and water systems. The fourth rolls out smart