Envisaging futuristic
solutions for the creation ofsmart and sustainable cities

Envisaging futuristic
solutions for the creation ofsmart and sustainable cities

Introduction
The two terms, ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’, have considerably gained the attention of governments in
the Asia-Pacific region. The increase of population in metropolitan cities such as Seoul, Singapore,
Tokyo, Sidney or Beijing require sophisticated solutions to guarantee a well operating ecosystem.
Meanwhile, growing concerns about climate change and pollution have urged municipalities tothink of sustainable methods on urban development and improvement of livelihood. Technologicalprogress such as AI, 5G networks or cloud technologies, allow approaching these challenges in an
innovative and ‘smart’ way.

General trends
Apart from focusing on sustainability,
smart city solutions have shown different
characteristics and trends in the Asia-Pacificregion:Country-wide inclusiveness

Smart city concepts are increasingly being
applied to rural towns. For instance inAustralia, while Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaideand Brisbane are developing comprehensive
smart city strategies, smaller towns implement
ad hoc small-scale smart city projects. Similar
to Australia, India has chosen smaller tier 2
compact cities as testing grounds so that themodel deployed can be replicated to bigger
cities. While in Japan, the solutions developed
for smart cities are likely to be applied torural areas where the less dense population
is aging rapidly. The inclusion of citizens
is an important aspect of the Japanese
government’s Super City Initiative. For being
accepted, the project proposal should fulfill
certain conditions. For example, the project
should cover at least five areas in the dailylife of ordinary people (e.g. Transportation,Logistics, Payment, Administration, MedicalNEXTRENDS ASIA

and Nursing Care, Education, Energy andWater, Environment and Waste, Crime
prevention, and Disaster Control and Safety),and that the future societies must reflect theviewpoints of its residents.

Smart city solutions
can be applied toalmost every aspectof our daily life.

Streamlining government services
and renovating infrastructure

Popular smart city solutions are those
focusing on improving communication
between the city administration and its
citizens, improving city services (garbagecollection, parking, traffic, etc.) or renovating
existing infrastructure. Measures havebeen taken in many countries to address
the bureaucratic obstacles. Japan has
passed a bill that allows swiftly overcoming
bureaucratic obstacles for accepted
projects. India is also improving thecommunication channel between central andlocal governments to increase cooperation
efficiency. Furthermore, India has rolled
out the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) with
the intention of retrofitting the current city
infrastructure by providing, in particular,
affordable housing, environment friendly

2Envisaging futuristicsolutions for the creation ofsmart and sustainable cities

transport solutions, clean sanitation, etc.
Meanwhile, Singapore is studying intelligent
infrastructure systems through international
cooperation. A research program on Future
Resilient Systems (FRS) is ongoing from theSingapore-ETH Centre. The main objective
is to develop methods and tools to makeinfrastructure systems more robust andresilient with the help of digitalisation, dataacquisition analysis and intelligent advisoryabilities that interact with users and operators.
In China, by signing smart city development
strategies and contracts, government andenterprises promote the process of smart
cities together. The government has more ofa guiding role. For example, Alibaba Cloud
will work with the Shanghai government tocooperate in fields such as smart government,
industry internet platforms, social governance,and traffic management.
Special focus on green environment andmedical technology
Smart city solutions can be applied to almost
every aspect of our daily life. Considering
the severe global environmental issues weare facing nowadays, smart city solutions
offer us a gateway to a greener environment.

Companies are encouraged to develop smart
technology to reduce industrial waste anddevelop sustainable materials for increased
recycling and upcycling. For instance, CO2emissions can be reduced through Green IoTtechnologies and smart public transportation.
Big data analysis is also used for real time air
quality monitoring. Specific project example
includes City Developments Limited (CDL),
a real estate developer in Singapore. CDL
donated a total of $2.25 million to set up two
new research laboratories in partnership with
the National University of Singapore. The
NUS-CDL Smart Green Home will focus onengineering innovations to enhance green
living indoors. Except the environmental
challenges, medical technology is another
trending area. Hospitals in Korea have started
cooperating with giant mobile carriers toexpand the use of 5G technology into themedical sector. Smart technologies in publichealth, equipped with 5G network, IoT, VRand AI technologies, will lead to smarter andfaster medical data sharing, cleaner and safer
hospitals, and a more comfortable patientcare system.

Funding
Mechanisms
Funding support from governments isessential for sustainable development.
Countries in the Asia-Pacific region haveshown their long-term commitment todeveloping smart and sustainable cities by
providing sufficient funds. In Singapore, thegovernment committed $16 billion from 2011
to 2015 to establish the country as a global

NEXTREND ASIA

research and development (R&D) hub throughthe Research, Innovation and Enterprise(RIE) 2015 Plan. The government will sustain
its commitment to RIE and will invest $19billion for the RIE2020 Plan from 2016 to2020. ‘Urban Solutions and Sustainability(USS)’ is one of the four strategic technology
domains, where funding will be prioritised

Envisaging futuristic
solutions for the creation ofsmart and sustainable cities

to create new urban mobility solutions. InKorea, the project ‘Smart City, Seoul’ will
cost 1.4 trillion won (approx. $1.2 billion) fromthe government. And, in May 2019, Siheungcity also announced its plan to invest 42.5
billion won (approximately $34.5 million) by
2022 and carry out the project in the fields ofenvironment, energy, living welfare, data andsmart city business model development.
However, as smart cities continue to replace
traditional infrastructure and global funds
become smaller, governments have started
seeking innovative funding mechanisms.
Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models arewidely applied in different countries. The
collaboration between governmental agencies
and industry is also highlighted in Singapore
to create economic value and to establish thecountry as an international hub for sustainableurban solutions. Equity co-investment
schemes and research consortia formed
by industry and research performers will besupported to stimulate and to commercialise
these urban solutions.
In the city of Pune in India, three projects
have been recently approved including
one PPP model project where there is nofinancial burden on the Pune Municipal
Corporation (PMC) or the citizens of Pune.
All the expenditure will be taken care of by
the developer. Similar stories have emerged
from Japan, where smart cities are partly

funded by the central government as wellas companies such as Panasonic, Toyota
Motor, Sumitomo Corporation, Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries, NEC, Softbank and NTTetc. Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town, thefirst Japanese smart city built from scratch,cost 60 billion yen ($740 million) and went into
operation in 2014. A total of 18 companiesincluding Panasonic led the development.
Because of the companies’ contribution, 1000
households in town can make use of solar
panels, batteries for energy storage, LED
lightning, ride-share services and other smart
technologies. Cities are better positioned toattract private investors when the sustainableprojects already have local governmentsupports.
In China, local governments are more thanwilling to cooperate with leading internetcompanies, namely Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent,
JD.com, etc. With the advanced cloudcomputing, AI, IoT and digital solution
capabilities of these big companies, smart
cities are in rapid development. The municipal
government of Shanghai and Alibaba signed
a strategic cooperation agreement to explore
cloud computing to set a global benchmark
for a megacity streamlined by smart
technology. Alibaba Cloud will work with theShanghai government to cooperate in fields
such as smart government, industry internetplatforms, social governance, and trafficmanagement.

Smart City Projects with Smart Technology
Smart technologies help cities to unlock newsolutions and approaches. In the Asia-Pacificregion, countries have taken steps towardsbuilding sustainable cities with advanced
smart technologies. Specific projects vary on

NEXTRENDS ASIA

a country-to-country basis. Several pilot cities
are already in full operation in Southeast Asiaand have drawn the world’s attention.
Korea’s Seoul Metropolitan Government(SMG) was nominated 7 times in a row as the4

Envisaging futuristic
solutions for the creation ofsmart and sustainable cities

world’s best e-government city and is now
trying to push itself as a leading smart city
under the city government’s project ‘Smart
City, Seoul’. Under the lead of SMG’s effort,
cities like Busan, Sejong and Siheung arealso widely implementing smart industrial
ecosystem with technology from the 4thindustrial revolution. Siheung City summarises
the aim of its Smart City Project as “safecity, convenient daily life and smart Siheung.”
In 2018, Siheung was selected as the only
National Smart City Innovative Growth Engine
Project’s R&D demonstration city among 226
lower level local governments.
Meanwhile, through its concept of ‘Society
5.0’, Japan aims to cope with the challenges
brought about by falling population andaging society. The Kashiwa-no-ha Smart
City was inaugurated as early as 2006. The
project involves public-private-academic
partnerships that are jointly developing
solutions to the challenges of environmental
resources, energy and aging. It has more than1800 residential buildings and features a next
generation smart-grid that enables efficientenergy storage, CO2 reduction and electricity
availability after disasters. Another project thatis scheduled to start in 2021 is Woven city,
the energy-efficient and sustainable smart
city in Shizuoka Prefecture. By combining
Toyota’s expertise as an automaker andNTT’s communication know-how, the twocompanies aim to promote autonomous, zeroemission vehicles using 5G in Woven.
China is just building up its own experimental
zone. Beijing unveiled a plan to create theXiong’an New Area in Hebei province in 2017.
Xiong’an is located about 100kms southwestof Beijing. It is now the testing ground forNEXTRENDS ASIA

innovative urban development models inChina. In order to create an ecofriendly smart
city, the integration of artificial intelligence, bigdata, IoT technologies and cloud computing
has been emphasised in the planning anddesigning of the city. Alibaba’s City Brain
project is another example in China. The
project is located in Hangzhou, and Alibaba isgranted access to 104 traffic light junctions in
the city’s Xiaoshan district. Large amounts ofdata is gathered and processed by algorithms
in supercomputers before the cloud brain
determines how they (traffic lights) are tofunction. Eventually the data is fed back into
AI systems around the city. As a result, traffic
speed in the district was increased by 15per cent during the first year of operation.
Also, road accidents are now automaticallydetected so responses are faster and more
efficient, while illegal parking is tracked
in real-time. The City Brain project is now
implemented in 23 cities in Asia.
Despite limited resources and a growing
population in a limited land area, the city-state,
Singapore, continues to develop numerous
strategies and initiatives to ensure that town
planning and development take place in asustainable manner. According to the latest
IMD Smart Cities Index, Singapore topped

Smart technologies
help cities to unlock
new solutions andapproaches.

Envisaging futuristic
solutions for the creation ofsmart and sustainable cities

the ranking as the world’s smartest city. Theexpansion of 5G technology is one of the key
factors. They plan to roll out commercial 5G
services starting next year and are on track tooffer nationwide 5G coverage by 2025, withat least 50% of the city-state covered witha standalone network by the end of 2022.
Punggol, a whole area in the north of thecountry, has been designated as a Strategic

National Project for Smart Nation and is
set to become a tech-enabled, sustainable
town showcasing Singapore’s Smart Nation
ambitions. The 50-hectare Punggol Digital
District is on track for completion by 2023
and will serve as a living lab to test out new
concepts such as ‘Smart Transport System’,‘Next Generation Business Park’, etc.

Table 1: Smart City Index 2020 (Source IMD, 2020)

City

Smart City
Rank 2020

Changefrom 2019

City

Smart City
Rank 2020

Changefrom 2019

Singapore1(0)Sydney20(-4)

Helsinki2(+6)

Hong-Kong

32(+5)

Zurich

3(-1)

Seoul

47(0)

Auckland

4(+2)

Kuala Lumpur

54(+16)

Oslo5(-2)

Shenzhen67(-24)

Copenhagen6(-1)

Tokyo79(-17)

Geneva7(-3)

Beijing82(-22)

Taipei8(-1)

New Delhi

86(-18)Risks and Barriers
Outdated Infrastructure

Outdated infrastructure has become a major
problem in adapting smart technologies.
Sensor technology is critical in smart cities
for data collection and analyses. However,decades-old infrastructure will not be able
to provide necessary support to install andNEXTRENDS ASIA

maintain these sensors, not to mention
smart solutions like solar power, battery
storage, etc. Taking into account the scaleand size of countries like China and India,
the unbalanced development in different

regions is slowing down the speed of smart
technology deployment. Technical glitches

6

Envisaging futuristic
solutions for the creation ofsmart and sustainable cities

also tend to cause inability to implement
smart projects to their full potential. For
instance, the CBRFree WiFi in Canberra, oneof Australia’s largest free outdoor public WiFi
networks, is slow and impractical to use. In
many cases, the ‘smart-technology-ready’
infrastructure is complicated and costly andthe approval process may take years. All
these factors have made some second/
third tier cities reluctant to renovate theirinfrastructure.

Data Privacy

Big data is the key for innovation in themodern world, and smart technologies are noexception. Data collected by smart sensors,cameras installed on every street, etc., haveincreased privacy concerns among the public.
Eight of the world’s top 10 most-surveilled
cities are in China. Up to 626 million cameras
are expected to be in use by 2020. It does
help in crime detection and prevention,
but it also makes you feel you are being‘watched’ 24 hours a day. The advanced
facial recognition technology and the amountof data that government has access to,aggravate people’s fear of leaking personal
information. Public’s confidence in the storage
and use of data by the administration is shaky.
How to balance innovation and privacy is thequestion that needs to be answered in thefuture.

Social Inclusion

It is important that smart city planningconsiders all groups of people, and not justthe affluent and technologically savvy. In anNEXTRENDS ASIA

aging population, smart solutions should beinclusive across social boundaries (incomedisparities or education levels). In Korea, thediscrimination against elderlies and disabled
who are relatively apart from rapid changes
in technologies, exist. For instance, smart
ordering services through electronic kiosks
are reported to limit the usages by elderly orvisually handicapped people, and many aged
citizens must either make the extra effort tocatch up with the new technologies or decideto purely rely on the help of their children fromthe younger generation.

Talent Shortage

The availability of people with the required
skills to carry out Smart City projects has
emerged as a critical challenge for localgovernments. In general, digital skills andsmart city leadership are perceived as lacking
in the public sector at all administrativelevels. A community with a ‘sustainable
development’ mindset should be formed
so that the citizens can be more engaged
in the process and up-to-date with the
newly released technologies. Take China forexample. Smart city development is heavily
government-driven and the government is inneed of high-tech talents providing smart citysolutions. According to a report published by
Tsinghua University, China is in shortage of
qualified talents in the big data field. In 2019,
the Ministry of Education has approved 35
universities to offer degrees in AI. In 2020, thenumber jumped to 180. AI has now become
the fastest expanding discipline.

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