Smart city technologies offer great promise for innovations in traffic and building management and operations of city government and electrical grids.
However, the work requires greater coordination at the federal level in the U.S., according to a new report by a Washington think tank. More federal R&D funding and greater coordination of AI intelligence tools across an array of U.S. cities is needed, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said.
“City governments ultimately must take the lead in deploying AI smart city applications, but there is an important role for federal government in funding R&D and coordinating activities,” said Colin Cunliff, senior policy analyst at ITIF and co-author of the report, “How Congress and the Biden administration could jumpstart smart cities with AI.”
ITIF said the U.S. needs to draw lessons from other countries in ways to develop and deploy AI. In one example, Singapore has developed a digital twin of its island city so that government, businesses and researchers can use it as a test bed to run simulations.
The report also noted “significant funding gaps” in demonstration and deployment of AI in smart city applications. “There are also no cross-cutting AI and smart city initiatives,” ITIF said.
Part of the value of AI and other smart city technologies will be to reduce carbon emissions. The technology can be applied to energy efficiency of many systems such as building heating and cooling and lighting. Also, real-time traffic data and smart traffic lights can reduce energy usage, ITIF said.
Some federal investments in AI for smart cities has begun, ITIF noted, but is small. The U.S. Department of Transportation only invested $9.8 million in AI R&D in fiscal year 2020, even though intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are a potential major use case of AI.
ITIF called for a doubling of investment in R&D of AI with energy applications across the federal government. Also, ITIF called on Congress to fund 10 smart city cooperative research networks at universities across the country.
Also, ITIF called on Congress to provide at least $2 billion to fund a competitive smart cities program, noting that DOT had launched a smart city challenge in 2015, in which 80 cities competed for a $40 million grant. The grants should be award to up to 10 large cities, 20 medium sized cities and 30 small cities to invest in smart city infrastructure.
Also, Congress should reserve 5% of the Highway Trust Fund allocated to states for digital and ITS-based projects. That totals about $2.5 billion.
“Smart city investment has been compromised during the COVID-19 pandemic because of revenue shortfalls,” said Ashley Johnson, policy analyst at ITIF and co-author of the report. “Increasing federal investment and coordination to jumpstart smart cities would address several challenges at once. Smart cities offer an important opportunity to address infrastructure needs, reduce emissions and save money to ease strained and state and local budgets.”
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