Next month, the Beijing government will outline plans to spend 30 billion yuan (about HK$28 billion) on information technology projects for the 2008 Olympic Games and invite bidding from vendors.
Flagging the move are executives at Growth Enterprise Market-listed systems integrator Capinfo - founded by four Beijing government agencies in 1998. It created the Web site Beijing used during the bidding process for the Games. The firm is also involved in the planning for the 2008 event's information technology needs.
Chairman Chen Xinxiang said most of the projects would be open for public tender, with 16 major projects and 100 sub-projects already defined.
'Telecommunications is one. Digital broadcasting and digital TV is another project. The whole technology infrastructure system is another,' Mr Chen said.
Two areas where Capinfo is already co-ordinating research are the delivery of multi-lingual services and wireless infrastructure. Sub-projects in these two areas are also likely to go out for bidding.
One goal is to allow visitors to the Olympics sites to be able to access services and information in a number of languages. Institutions working on the problem include Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.