Hong Kong has been recognized in IDC’s third annual Smart City Asia Pacific Awards, scoring awards in two of the 14 categories.
Hong Kong won in the transportation category for its Next Generation Intelligent Transport System, and in the smart building category for its Zero Carbon Building project.
China meanwhile won in the smart meter category for its Shenzhen Smart Water project, and in the education category for its Hubei Public Services Platform of Education Resources.
But the biggest winner was New Zealand, which picked up four awards in the smart grid, tourism/arts/culture, connected health and public works categories, followed by Singapore, which secured three awards in the administration, economic development and social services category.
In total 18 smart city projects were represented across the 14 categories, due to ties in four categories – administration, education, land use/environmental management and smart buildings.
“Asia-Pacific smart city projects in the past year have exhibited strong national development focus with an increasing citizen-centric personalization combined with ‘low investment-high impact’ agendas – all in hopes of attracting the right mix of manpower talents and lucrative foreign-direct investments,” commented Gerald Wang, head of IDC Government and Education Insights Asia Pacific.
“This socioeconomic shift towards creating more localized and quality smart city ecosystems are notably influenced by new international and regional trade dynamics. The failure of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and China’s increased efforts to boost its global leadership with endeavors such as the Belt and Road Initiative will continue to shape commerce and innovation drive in the region.”
According to IDC, the key trends shaping the future of smart city programs in APAC include efforts to improve city economics and risk management, cybersecurity and compliance, socioeconomic growth and infrastructure as well as foreign investment and manpower development.