The amount of money spent to make cities smart in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) will reach US$35.4 billion this year, up 16.8 per cent over the forecast last year, according to research firm IDC.
A few of the most ambitious smart cities – Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul – are expected to spend a combined US$4 billion this year, it predicted, in a new report released last week.
The numbers point to the growing effort among cities to not only make life better for citizens but also attract global talent to live, work and play in the most favoured cities of the future.
According to IDC, city governments are looking beyond simply placing services on the cloud. They are shifting to “integrated, cross-agency hubs” to provide services such as transport, as they move on from siloed cloud-first endeavours prior to 2018, it added.
Hardware represents the highest spending, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of the overall smart cities-related spending in 2019. Services form the second-largest technology group in terms of spending, followed by software and connectivity.
Interestingly, services spending is expected to overtake hardware spending by the end of the forecast, according to IDC.
