TechRound
Summary
Cities are becoming living, breathing digital platforms, with 5G, AI, data and sustainability backing all aspects of daily life. But just like every city has its own personality and priorities, each one defines and approaches ‘smart’ in its own way. For example, Dubai believes that centralising decisions will help it move quickly and scale before anyone else does.
At the same time, cities in the UK think that experimentation across multiple sites and pilots is much more valuable. These contrasting strategies both have their merits, and founders and investors can learn plenty by comparing Dubai’s smart city and London and the broader UK’s smart-city pilots.
Running with the experimental theme, UK smart city programmes focus on experimental deployment across multiple cities. Whether it’s to do with retrofits, district energy schemes or net-zero roadmaps, startups get the freedom and breathing room to test different solutions. On the other hand, Dubai goes for large-scale, centrally coordinated programmes. We’re talking big clean energy projects and utility-led solar with a top-down approach that accelerates adoption. In turn, there’s little flexibility for startups as they need to meet rigorous standards.
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