Will smarter cities in China emerge from the haze and where will the funding come from?

Will smarter cities in China emerge from the haze and where will the funding come from?

(Event Review) — Steve Rogerson reports for M2M Now from the Advantech World Partner Conference in Suzhou, China, where there’s some doubt about how M2M growth will be achieved. 

Advantech is pinning its hopes on the growth of smart cities to meet its plan for a doubling of annual turnover from US$1 billion to $2 billion in the next five years, and has created a dedicated machine-to-machine communications (M2M) division to help it achieve this target. But the company’s leaders were more than a little vague when asked about who would make the necessary investment to bring about what they hoped would be a smart city revolution.

These were conflicting messages from the company’s recent World Partner Conference in Suzhou, China, which was themed throughout on exploiting smart cities and the Internet of Things.

Advantech’s CEO, KC Liu set the tone in his opening address to the conference. “We have a mission for smart city and IoT solutions,” he said. “Most of the cities in the world will become smart cities. There are great opportunities in front of us.”

KC Liu
KC Liu, Advantech’s CEO: Mission for smart city and IoT solutions

He described what could be seen today as the “tip of the iceberg” with water, electrical and telephone metering, saying there was going to be a paradigm shift to vertical systems. The smart city market, he said, would become a hypermarket between 2020 and 2025, and by 2030 he forecast it would reach $10 trillion.

“Embedded computers and intelligent systems will be the core building blocks for this,” said Liu. “We need to evolve our general embedded platforms to application-ready platforms and on to service-ready platforms. This will be a new level of value-added offering.”

The need for the technology can be seen from predictions such as 70% of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050, bringing with them problems of traffic congestion, pollution and security. Already we are seeing cities start to implement technology to help them deal with the influx. Taiwan, for example, where Advantech has its home, has already pledged to move to 100% electronic road toll collection. There are trials in the USA and Europe on automatic guided vehicles. Hospitals are looking at remote monitoring so they can treat more patients at home.

Richard Dwyer
Rick Dwyer, Intel: Converting data into actionable information

“The Internet of Things will enrich the lives of everyone on the planet,” Rick Dwyer, Intel vice-president, told delegates. “It is about collecting data and converting that data into actionable information to deliver valued services. It needs to be actionable and monetised information. It is about business transformation.”

But the question of who would pay for this transformation brought only vague answers. Chaney Ho, Advantech’s president, said it depended on governments to put their hands in their pockets, and gave the example of China where the government had already approved 300 cities to go through the process.

 

 

Chaney Ho, Advantech
Chaney Ho: Smart cities prompted by 2020 Olympic Games in Japan

He also pointed to Japan where the promise of the 2020 Olympic Games had prompted its government to initiate a smart city transformation. “The governments need to approve the services,” said Ho.

Dwyer added: “Decisions will be made at a country by country and city by city level. They will see the tremendous value in providing services to their citizens.”

But he admitted that a lot of the predictions were guesswork when it came to what services would be provided. “We don’t know what we don’t know,” he said. “There are new business models coming in each day because of connected devices. There are developers on Android who are too young to drive who are creating new applications.”

The company’s new M2M division will combine resources in China and Taiwan and will be headed by vice-president Miller Chang. Existing wireless and module divisions have been incorporated into the group, which will have 20 dedicated people initially. “We plan to hire another 20 engineers in China,” said Chang.

Miller Chang Advantech
Miller Chang: Wireless and module divisions have been incorporated

Ho finished by saying that to exploit this growing market, the company’s salespeople and engineers needed to start talking a new language.

“We are facing many different vertical markets,” he said. “We are talking with doctors and casino owners. They are not engineers. So we should not be selling products, we should be selling applications and solutions. We should talk to the customer using their language.”

The author, Steve Rogerson, is a freelance journalist
and a regular contributor to M2M Now.

RECENT ARTICLES

Get a US$50 Amazon voucher for sharing your IoT brand knowledge

Posted on: March 28, 2024

We want to know what you know about the IoT space. Just 3 minutes could earn you a US$50 Amazon digital gift card!

Read more

Enhance EV charging performance with cellular connectivity

Posted on: March 28, 2024

Electric vehicles (EVs) are steadily growing their market share at the expense of internal combustion engine vehicles. The growth is fuelled by several factors. Perhaps most importantly, prices for EVs have started to drop as competition in the industry is intensifying. New players and models are emerging, prompting several established EV makers to lower their

Read more
FEATURED IoT STORIES

What is IoT? A Beginner’s Guide

Posted on: April 5, 2023

What is IoT? IoT, or the Internet of Things, refers to the connection of everyday objects, or “things,” to the internet, allowing them to collect, transmit, and share data. This interconnected network of devices transforms previously “dumb” objects, such as toasters or security cameras, into smart devices that can interact with each other and their

Read more

The IoT Adoption Boom – Everything You Need to Know

Posted on: September 28, 2022

In an age when we seem to go through technology boom after technology boom, it’s hard to imagine one sticking out. However, IoT adoption, or the Internet of Things adoption, is leading the charge to dominate the next decade’s discussion around business IT. Below, we’ll discuss the current boom, what’s driving it, where it’s going,

Read more

9 IoT applications that will change everything

Posted on: September 1, 2021

Whether you are a future-minded CEO, tech-driven CEO or IT leader, you’ve come across the term IoT before. It’s often used alongside superlatives regarding how it will revolutionize the way you work, play, and live. But is it just another buzzword, or is it the as-promised technological holy grail? The truth is that Internet of

Read more

Which IoT Platform 2021? IoT Now Enterprise Buyers’ Guide

Posted on: August 30, 2021

There are several different parts in a complete IoT solution, all of which must work together to get the result needed, write IoT Now Enterprise Buyers’ Guide – Which IoT Platform 2021? authors Robin Duke-Woolley, the CEO and Bill Ingle, a senior analyst, at Beecham Research. Figure 1 shows these parts and, although not all

Read more

CAT-M1 vs NB-IoT – examining the real differences

Posted on: June 21, 2021

As industry players look to provide the next generation of IoT connectivity, two different standards have emerged under release 13 of 3GPP – CAT-M1 and NB-IoT.

Read more

IoT and home automation: What does the future hold?

Posted on: June 10, 2020

Once a dream, home automation using iot is slowly but steadily becoming a part of daily lives around the world. In fact, it is believed that the global market for smart home automation will reach $40 billion by 2020.

Read more

5 challenges still facing the Internet of Things

Posted on: June 3, 2020

The Internet of Things (IoT) has quickly become a huge part of how people live, communicate and do business. All around the world, web-enabled devices are turning our world into a more switched-on place to live.

Read more