The present era of industrialization and smart cities can be summed up in either of the three words — digital, automated, or smart. We look around and find every industry of every country in every continent of the world either boasting of having achieved a headway in complete digitization or is accumulating resources and optimizing infrastructure with a goal to achieve digital transformation.
Anyone who understands the power of digitization today, and to what extent it can optimize a country’s operation towards unparalleled growth, would know what the race is all about. There is one underlying reason why every system aims to implement greater digital or smarter systems to get things done — empowerment. And smart cities are basically one of the most fundamental pathways to a country’s empowerment.
What Are Smart Cities And How Are They Developed?
Smart cities, simply put, are products of a system’s efforts to go green with the help of technology. These are initiatives to make a city more advanced by cutting on carbon emissions and pollution while banking on data, automation, and the use of digital technologies.
The objective is to maximize sustainability, renewability, and minimize carbon footprint to optimize the city for greater well being and better management. Like almost about every industry out there, smart cities of today heavily rely on the implementation of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things to make way for a greater scope of automation.
A few projects in the Middle East are making commendable progress by integrating sustainable strategies with said futuristic technologies to create cities that might become much more than just smart.
Smart city development has been gaining more impetus than ever in the last few years. Perhaps this is why the global market is predicted to reach a whopping $1.73 trillion by 2023 with the Middle East stealing a large chunk of the revenue and limelight. So much so, that a staggeringly promising growth trend of smart cities in the Middle East predicts the market to inflate to twice the size between 2019 to 2022.
The drivers of this group are mainly Dubai and Abu Dhabi that rank 45 and 56 respectively in the IMD Smart City 2019 Index. Here’s what’s going on behind the scenes.
United Arab Emirates
Abu Dhabi
To achieve the city’s five-year sustainability plan, the municipality has been taking fast-tracked efforts and various initiatives have been going on floors.
One such project that is being applauded by urbanization critics worldwide is the IoT Cockpit model. The project rolls out an IoT-based 3D visualization tool that is both, immersive and interactive. Not only the monitoring and management of city landscapes is stepping up as a result of the massive data generated by the city, but interaction with citizens on a personal level is taking the administration to bespoke levels. Abu Dhabi is now working towards achieving the zero carbon footprint target by streamlining more projects towards sustainability.
Dubai
Dubai has been one of the frontrunners and first runners in terms of planning and implementing smart city projects and achieving the status on a global scale. Since 2014 when the initiative was first declared, Dubai has been aggressively targeting six different areas to upgrade to a smart status and achieve them all by 2021.
One of the projects that made heads turn was Hyperloop Dubai, a project boosting the transport experience by adopting futuristic technologies. The project cuts down travel time between important cities like Dubai and Riyadh by more than 50% as the travel experience advanced to supersonic speeds.
Dubai’s Light Fidelity technology deserves a mention of its superpotential of data transmitting up to 224GB per second. Another revolutionary project is the Bank Chain that will multiply the security levels and prevent banks as well as police frauds. 5D control rooms, 3D printing, smart parks, and live traffic monitoring are other smart projects that have become the new normal.
Saudi Arabia
Considering that it was only in 2017 that the kingdom announced its 17 smart cities project, Saudi Arabia has been performing exceptionally well to reach their goal. Their smart digital initiatives, in their stages of inception, are focused on two primary areas — service deliveries by the government and sustainability whereas urban life transformation is a part of the larger plan. The services comprise of the most basic ones including utilities and healthcare.
The project which has the scrutiny of the world is the NEOM project that aims at developing 100% renewable operations. Saudi is determined to do it right with its smart cities and the massive US$ 500bn investment that was pumped for the objective paints a bright picture. Inaugurated in 2017, the project aims at incorporating several smart city technologies and setting a precedent for other traditional cities to follow. Meanwhile, it also checks out the goal of sustainable finance by generating massive capital by tourism.
Key Takeaways And Future Analysis
The above projects sure are ambitious and transformational. As well as the turning point that can change the face of how these cities, and eventually the country, might look like. However, the focus is seen shifting to proper implementation, which is only good as long as planning is not overlooked.
In the planning process, emphasis needs to be laid on the integration of the differentiated services that will combine to make a city smart. Moreover, the approach should be placed in high regard when setting priorities especially ones like the hybrid operating model that are more strategy-centric as opposed to cost-centric.
The future can see a greater premise of smart city projects being centered around digital identity in the form of data utilization to solve more and more citizen problems to further enhance the well-being. Besides, of course, the broadening bandwidth of both, the number of cities and the extent of innovations.
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