A digitalization project in Qujing, Yunnan, has reportedly ended in failure, with its flagship app now discontinued after attracting almost no users.

An investigation found that the "Digital Qujing Operations Center," which managed projects including the city's "City Brain" and the "QujingTong" app, has been abandoned. Random street interviews revealed that most citizens were unfamiliar with the app.

According to the Qujing Municipal Data Bureau, the "QujingTong" app had approximately 60 daily active users by the end of 2025.

In 2021, inspired by Hangzhou's successful "City Brain" urban governance model, local authorities initiated a bidding process to attract corporate investment. They restructured the Qujing Digital Economy Company, with the government co-funding the "City Brain" through service procurement. Lacking in-house technical expertise, the city delegated the core technical assessments and solution design to an external enterprise, which proposed a comprehensive but broad "City Brain" plan. However, local officials were unclear on how the system should actually be built.

After its completion, not only was "QujingTong" ignored, but the integrated "One Network for Unified Management" platform also failed to gain traction. Despite this, the city continued paying operational fees for three years, totaling nearly 30 million yuan.

In 2025, a city inspection team flagged the project as posing a risk of wasting fiscal funds. Consequently, the Qujing government decided to cease operational payments from that year onward. The Data Bureau and Qujing Digital Company subsequently signed a contract termination agreement, officially ending the "City Brain" project. By March 2026, "QujingTong" was fully removed from major app stores, permanently halting all services.

In total, the project consumed 29.7 million yuan in municipal fiscal investment and 17 million yuan from local state-owned enterprises, amounting to 46.7 million yuan in overall public spending.