The first building complex in the Xiong'an New area is now open, more than a year after the announcement to set up the city. The citizen service center is ready to welcome visitors, and our reporter Ning Hong checks out the innovative concepts there.

Unlike many projects in China, the Xiong'an citizen service center is neither large, nor complex. Any mega city middle school would dwarf these dozen three-story buildings. However, behind the plain surface, some of China's most advanced concepts are being tested.

Wang Weijia is in charge of building Xiong'an's rainwater collection system. He explains to us what a sponge city means.

WANG WEIJIA DEPUTY MANAGER, CITIZEN SERVICE CENTER, CHINA CONSTRUCTION THIRD ENGINEERING BUREAU "We used materials such as water permeable bricks and built rain gardens among buildings. This will allow water to soak underground, so we can then collect it for secondary utilization."

The Xiong'an Citizen Service Center was mostly constructed using steel structures. The modularized houses were built in factories and assembled on site. And the entire construction process is digitalized using Building Information Modelling. These methods have greatly reduced construction times. This center was completed in less than six months.

YANG ZHONG ASST. GENERAL MANAGER, CHINA XIONG'AN CONSTRUCTION & INVESTMENT CO. "All the data will be collected during the construction process. It will be a digitalized zone, laying the foundations for smart city operations in the future."

Xiong'an will be a smart city. This unmanned supermarket is an example of what to expect. The store has no cashier, using facial recognition instead. Whenever I pick something, the money will be deducted automatically from my e-wallet.

NING HONG XIONG'AN NEW AREA "Shopping is getting much easier and all you need to do is to take a selfie and upload it to the computer, so that the store could recognize you. All these products are free to select."

Clinics, a kindergarten, supermarket and residence zone, all inside the citizen service center. That means it will take just a few minutes walk to get anywhere one needs. Only electric vehicles are allowed here, and routes for driverless cars are also in place. This is what home will look like for the first group of companies and citizens that move to Xiong'an. Ning Hong, CGTN, Xiong'an New Area.