Juniper Research has ranked Shanghai as the world’s number-one smart city for 2022. It highlights Shanghai’s Citizen Cloud – which is said to be a world-leading citizen data platform – as “a one-stop point for more than 1,000 different services for city residents”.
In the report Smart cities: Key technologies, environmental impact and market forecasts 2022-2026, the research agency evaluated aspects including transportation and infrastructure, energy and lighting, city management, and technology and urban connectivity, according to a statement. Shanghai was followed in the top five by Seoul, Barcelona, Beijing and New York.
“Many cities have deployed technology and data to help local authorities reduce environmental impact and energy usage,” said research co-author Mike Bainbridge in the statement. He continued to explain that the top cities in the ranking are finding innovative ways to leverage that technology to deliver benefits for their citizens.
Juniper Research also said smart cities present a 70-billion US dollars opportunity by 2026, which is up from 35 billion US dollars in 2021. Much of this, it said, will focus on smart grid initiatives, which could save more than 1,000 TWh of electricity in 2026.
The research concluded that many areas of smart city development are still in their early stages, meaning that initial roll-outs make up much of the market. Juniper Research notes that this means savings made through smart city technologies will remain high.
