Rapid breakthroughs in technology are reshaping economy of various countries as well as society and smart city is swiftly becoming a buzzword across the globe. With growing urbanization, smart cities are likely to co-exist with digital technology and disruptive innovations. The world is facing a big challenge due to industrialization and urbanization with big cities becoming a center stage of talent and a major driver of economic development. With cities transforming into smart cities, disruptive technology has become a major driver. New technologies such as machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence as well as big data analytics is projected to influence the growth of the smart cities industry. Smart city concept has gained momentum in emerging economies such as India and China and is likely augment the growth of the smart cities with use of next-gen technologies and setting up & launching of strong 5G network infrastructure in these economies. As per the study of Allied Market Research, the global smart cities market is set to accrue earnings worth $6,061.0 billion by 2030. Let us discuss some of the trends witnessed across the global smart cities industry.
- Green Planning of Public Places: Smart cities are planned and designed by governments for its citizens. Smart cities means eco-friendly streets, corridors, and public places as centroids of social life.
- Smart Health Communities: Cities referred as smart cities develop effective healthcare systems focusing on diagnosing & treating sickness along with aiding wellness of an individual as well as ensuring prevention of disease through intervention and digital health systems.
- Mobility: Smart cities offer intelligent, intermodal, and autonomous mobility with more walking and cycling spaces where transportation is offered as a common service.
- Digital Innovation Ecosystem: Smart cities garner talent, enable creativity, and promote disruptive thinking. They also offer innovation model approach and integrate physical and digital elements.
- 15-Minute City: Smart cities are designed in a way that amenities and a large number of services are available in vicinity of 15-minute walking distance, thereby producing a novel neighborhood approach.
- Circular Economy and Manufacturing Locally: Smart cities implement circular economy models based on a healthy resource circulation and on sharing, restoring, and reuse principles. The circular economy model highlights on restricting municipal wastes and on enhancing crop yield through urban farming.
- Inclusive Services & Planning: Smart cities provide services and adopt new approaches that help it in combating inequalities. These new solutions and approaches help them in offering strong infrastructure facility and housing along with job opportunities to individuals.
- Smart and Sustainable Buildings: The cities termed as smart focus on developing regenerated buildings with low power consumption. Furthermore, these smart cities makes effective allocation of building and utilities resources for properly managing wastes, water, and energy.
- Mass Participation: Smart cities follow a human-centric approach and are designed for and by its citizens, thereby encouraging mass participation in its ecosystem along with successful implementation of open government guidelines.
- City Operations Through Artificial Intelligence (AI): Smart cities make use of automated procedures and implement data-based planning models.
- Cyber security and Privacy Awareness: These cities promote awareness about significance of data privacy and preparedness and its ability in countering cyber-attacks.
- Surveillance and use of predictive models based on AI: Smart cities are making use of AI-basd predictive models for ensuring safety of their citizens while safeguarding privacy and fundamental rights of individuals.
Apart from these trends, one of the trends commonly witnessed in smart cities is smart health communities focusing on reimaging public health, integrating individual well-being into urban design, and proactively addressing health issues of the people. Furthermore, a data-driven digitally connected smart city can make healthcare systems smarter and interoperable with other services. Moreover, smart cities provide enhanced public safety, emergency services, housing solutions, social services, and transport facilities to its people. In addition, smart city facilitates a real-time response to health problems, addresses health inequalities, and aids interconnected health system. The aim of creating smart city by various governments across the globe is to ensure well-being of its citizens and various communities globally. Furthermore, the smart city concept has enabled governments across the globe launch smart technologies in various sectors such as healthcare, entertainment, infrastructure, and power & utilities, thereby improving their service delivery.
Moreover, cities in Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions are setting up smart city systems for enhancing service delivery along with fulfilling sustainability targets. Citing an instance, the Rio de Janeiro, capital city of Brazil, launched Smart Rio Venture that include a program for upgrading public lighting system of the city. The Smart Rio venture is anticipated to bring extensive improvement in public safety activities by reducing road collisions. The initiative is intended to promote the smart city concept in Latin America, thereby boosting the growth of the smart cities market in the region. Furthermore, Chile switched from street lightening network to energy-efficient LED technology and Columbia deployed sensors for monitoring rainfall, soil movement, and water levels for detecting risk of occurrence of floods. This, in turn, will boost the growth of smart cities industry in Latin America. For the record, India completed nearly 228 PPP ventures valued at INR 22,000 crore as per its Smart Cities Mission, an urban renewal and retrofitting project by Government of India with an aim of developing smart cities across the country.
Key players in the global smart cities market are implementing strategies such as the launching of new digital technologies. The purpose of launching new technologies is aimed at improving the infrastructure and enhancing the healthcare services and increase their global reach such that adults, underprivileged, depilated, persons below poverty line and economically weak persons can have easy access to them. In addition, the launching of smart technologies in smart cities will enable the market players in improving their brand equity and brand value in the global market along with establishing a strong position in the global market. Furthermore, players are signing partnership deals with other players in same or different industry for expanding reach of their business across the globe along with making their presence felt globally. This, in turn, is predicted to help them not only in accounting noticeably to the global smart cities industry size but open new growth opportunities for the smart cities industry across the globe. Moreover, this strategy is likely to help the industry players in gaining an edge over their business rivals. In addition, firms are investing in smart city projects such as electric vehicle production for reducing fuel emissions and operational costs and launching of power-efficient technologies such as LED technologies. These investments are projected to have a long-term impact on energy sustenance and can reduce the use of energy by over 50% along with minimizing air and light pollution. Moreover, the strategy of investing in smart city projects will help in erecting a strong electric grid and solar panel infrastructure in public utilities sector apart from developing of smart transportation systems for roads and railways focused on reducing traffic jams and collisions. Let us discuss some of the key strategies implemented by the key players in the global smart cities market and influencing its growth.
Planet Smart City To Raise Over 60 Million Euros For Launching 54 Smart Ventures Globally
Strategic investments in developing smart city projects will play a key role in influencing the growth of global smart cities market. Warburg Pincus, a U.S.-based investor, has announced that it will make investments in cross-border e-commerce venture in Southern province of Binh Duong, Vietnam. The venture includes high-tech factories, warehouses, showrooms, and offices. The move will provide impetus to smart city concept, thereby boosting the global smart cities industry trends. Furthermore, Planet Smart City, a UK-based firm providing smart and affordable housing services, will raise more than 60 million euros for launching nearly 54 smart ventures including housing ventures in next three years. For the record, the firm is focusing on key markets such as India.
H20 Hospitality Limited Collaborates With Bespin Global Company For Digital Service Offerings In Vietnam
Market players are entering partnerships with an objective of expanding their business portfolio and players in smarty cities business are not exception to this. Reportedly, H20 Hospitality Limited, a technology-based hospitality management firm, joined hands with Bespin Global Company, a cloud service management organization, in operating digital services for smart city ventures in Vietnam.
Industry Players Use Strategy of Investments and Partnerships To Expand Business Outreach Globally
Participants in the global smart cities industry are adopting key business strategies of strategic investments and partnerships for increasing their business portfolio and establish a strong position in the global market. Implementation of these strategies help the players in establish a strong consumer base across various regions and also contribute majorly towards the market profitability. These strategies will also help players in the global smart cities business garner huge returns on investments.
Author Bio – Dhananjay Punekar is writer, avid reader and book lover, and interested in watching sports. He holds post graduate degree in management and is working as a Sr. Specialist Content Writer at Allied Market Research. He can be reached at [email protected]
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