According to the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG), Beijing will use the RMB 15 billion (US$ 1.8 billion) that is earmarked for the city's utilities to improve the city's water, power and gas supplies. Within the next five years, Beijing will establish a second Shanxi-Beijing natural gas pipeline, tripling or quadrupling the city's current supply of natural gas. By 2005, BOCOG estimates that electricity use will soar from the present 31.8 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) to 50 billion kWh, with peak period use expected to jump from 67.8 billion to 100 billion kWh.
China also plans to spend RMB 30 billion (US$ 3.6 billion) on "digitalizing Beijing." This will entail upgrading the city's basic information technology and telecommunication infrastructures and district wide networks of fiber-optic cable. The Chaoyang, Dongcheng, Haidian, Shijingshan and Fengtai districts will be the highest priority areas for the provision of modern telecommunications infrastructure, and as such will be the city's first platforms for the widespread use of e-commerce, e-administration and distance education. According to the BOCOG, the Olympic Park area will have access to digital and broadband telecommunications, wireless transmission, networking technologies and other intelligent technology solutions.
