COVID-19 Drives International Smart Cities Market Boom

Smart Cities have been the talk of the industry for many years now, but the COVID-19 lockdowns seem to have accelerated the rise of smart cities in a short span of time. According to the latest market research report, the COVID-19 is driving the international Smart Cities market boom. More than 500 urban areas around the world are now expected to adopt Digital Twin technology by 2025.

Dominique Bonte, Vice President, End Markets at ABI Research, said: “Real-time 3D models of cities-built environment allow scenario analysis through the simulation of the potential impact of natural disasters like flooding, [adoption of] generative design principles for new city developments [which optimise] energy savings and solar capacity, and saving costs by operating cities more efficiently and effectively.”

He noted that since the first Digital Twins were deployed in cities such as Singapore around three years ago, features have quickly expanded to enable a much wider range of application areas including infrastructure coverage planning and green infrastructure management. Boston is one city to have already employed the use of Digital Twins, alongside Helsinki, Jaipur and Dublin.

“The Digital Twin ecosystem system activity is growing quickly with more suppliers announcing more deployments in more cities,” said Bonte. “Vendors like Dassault Systèmes and others are paving the way for extending urban Digital Twins to marketplaces and opening access to key metrics and dashboards to the citizens themselves, increasing their overall involvement and helping gain approval of city government decisions and policies.”

The report titled, “Smart Cities and Smart Spaces” positions Cityzenith alongside Bentley Systems and Microsoft as businesses best placed to capitalize in this expanding market.

In order to help cities achieve carbon neutrality, Cityzenith announced in October 2020 that it will donate its Digital Twin software to up to 10 cities over the next year as part of their Clean Cities – Clean Future campaign. Additionally, Bentley Systems partnered with Microsoft to integrate Azure IoT Digital Twins and Azure Maps into its iTwins platform.

Michael Jansen, CEO and founder of Chicago-based Cityzenith, said “We at Cityzenith welcome this news and are delighted to be a part of the growing Digital Twin industry. We believe our Clean Cities – Clean Future campaign can be a key component of this global effort towards cleaner cities and a safer environment.”