Big-city life isn’t always business friendly. Broken escalators cause delays in railway stations, faulty trains mean meetings are cancelled and failing broadband wrecks important contacts. If businesses were able to see when problems were about to occur, they could work around them. But what if the city itself was able to foresee snarl-ups and stop them in advance?
Cloud software is giving smart cities that capability, enabling administrators to see through walls and predict the future when it comes to daily city life. The same cloud tech can also help a business run transparently and remotely, whether it be a sandwich factory or an accountancy office.
Smart cities, like Nava Raipur in India, are now so advanced they can provide digital 3D modelling of the entire city, enabling forensic analysis of problems before they occur. In Barcelona, escalator failures are avoided because a central data system can spot the unit is overused or progressively slowing down, or that the water pipe leading to an ornamental fountain is starting to vibrate under increased pressure. With all these pieces of interlinked data stored on the cloud, city administrators can see and assess them instantaneously.