IBM has secured a contract to help the government of Dongying, a city in China, develop a platform for providing cloud-based services to businesses. The platform will be hosted at the Yellow River Delta Cloud Computing Center the city is building in collaboration with IBM. It is hoped that the cloud will help the city, known for oil cultivation and manufacturing, make a transition from an industrial to a service-based economy, according to an IBM statement.

"The national policy to develop the Yellow River Delta marks new opportunities for Dongying and ... raises newer and higher requirements on informationalization," Dongying Vice Mayor Li Jinkun said in a statement. "The 'Smarter City' initiative proposed by IBM is the blueprint of a new city that we are trying to develop and keep improving. Dongying expects to become a real 'City of Digital Innovation' with the help of IBM cloud computing."

The cloud computing center will provide software development and testing resources for startups through a Web-based self-service interface. It will also support e-government services for the city's economic development zone and a research and development platform for oil cultivation.

China's second largest oil field is located in Dongying. As the city's petroleum supply chain continues expanding, one of the center's main goals is to provide services "to help its petroleum industry develop more innovative application services..." with emphasis on eco-friendly oil cultivation.

Smarter Cities is part of IBM's Smarter Planet initiative - a program through which the company helps cities implement technological solutions to increase efficiency of their infrastructures.