Latin America. There is no standardized definition of what a smart city is or what it looks like, however, we can see that there are some common elements and experiences that are shaping this definition.
The above, from the point of view of public transport, regarding the processes of efficient and predictable mobility within the city. The second edge corresponds to smart buildings, in terms of their energy efficiency methods and service experience.
Also today all fmCG industries are benefiting from the transformation towards Smart Cities. An example of this happens in the Food and Beverage industry, which continues to experience greater visibility in its production and innovation processes, especially in the area of transport within cities via darkstores delivering greater quality and experience to its end customers with learning about their consumption trend and preferences given their approach via these digital channels.
But little has been said about the role the Cloud plays in smart cities, which provides the foundation of digital architecture to connect people, processes, technology and data. According to a Gartner survey by 2024, about 75% of the Top 20 global FMCG manufacturers will have innovation partners that deliver the digital expertise and capabilities. This trend is associated with the speed of technological innovation that makes it very difficult for companies to count on continuous innovation to stay competitive. Thus, a technological architecture in the Cloud is presented as a crucial area for companies since the interaction within smart cities demands minimum capabilities in areas of scalability and adaptability, in addition to the technological resilience that supports business processes.
This makes more sense when taking into account some figures from the Grand View Research report, which indicates that in the United States the smart city market is now valued at US $ 98.15 billion, with annual growth projections of 29% from 2021 to 2028. Faced with this impressive figure, it is important to keep in mind that in a Cloud architecture the economies of scale necessary to generate a multiplier power in business processes are generated. These act in a fully connected way by being able to integrate the basic technologies for smart cities, those that correspond to the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence and the use of tools for the analysis of "Big Data", among others.
In smart cities, a significant number of data converge. We have the Internet of Things (IoT) as a platform that will generate massive data volumes where technologies like Data Lake will allow the storage of this data. The above, to be exploited both by the analytical platform and artificial intelligence algorithms as well as in business processes such as planning based on demand, development of new products, Logistics (DarkStores) and Production Processes.
Thus, the generation of data, its capture and its exploitation in a dynamic way requires an architecture with minimal capacities, although in the region there are still important challenges. At the local level, we have a rich human capital of professionals with the potential to lead new digital opportunities. However, the physical infrastructure and connectivity side makes the road more difficult and slower. The first thing is to ensure the level of service not only with the existing offer, but also by making services such as 5G and satellite internet (Starlink) more achievable. On the other hand, the real modernization of the State is fundamental to lead these actions. Today there is the technology to interact in smart cities, but we are still at the forefront of thinking out-of-the-Box. It is not about replicating a physical process in the digital world, but rather about rethinking it from the customer's point of view and the experience we want to provide.
The day will come when we will have, for example, a digital civil registry based on Blockchain technology where a citizen could even interact with the legislative branch to participate and vote on bills. On the other hand, the same single and reliable registry could allow a better and efficient social strategy to support citizens who need it or, to cross this information with the records of the Internal Revenue Service, to optimize collection and provide more efficient and more dynamic benefits to taxpayers. The objective is that we stop thinking about how we solve a problem with technology, but rather understand the root of the problem and redefine the process from the perspective of the digital community counting on the Cloud as a key tool that will help us towards this path. Smart cities can be a reality and the Cloud is one of the solutions that will act as an essential catalyst in local Smart Cities. It is up to us to be able to accelerate these changes by creating new experiences within our society.
Text written by Luis Reyes, Director of Architecture in Digital Transformation at Infor.
