We are living through an urban revolution in Southeast Asia as local governments and enterprises work together to implement secure, robust infrastructures to support an evolving smart city vision.
While Singapore stands at the forefront of smart city development, having ranked 7th globally in IMD's 2023 Smart City Index, neighbouring Southeast Asian nations are also embarking on similar journeys – each at their own pace. The Philippines, for instance, has committed to six smart city projects across three cities. And, in Indonesia, the government aims to establish 100 smart cities by 2045.
Read more: Charting artificial intelligence urbanism in Southeast Asia
At the World Economic Forum Davos Agenda virtual event, taking place from Jan 17 to 21, global leaders focused their discussion on a common interest that is shared across the regions and fields - that is the recovery from the pandemic.
The gathering offered a rare opportunity for most of key world leaders to have the same platform, whether they are involved in geopolitical tensions or even don't have working diplomatic relations. Among a few common and recurring themes was the initialization of economies. This was emphasized also by Indonesia's president Joko Widodo who has taken the chairmanship of G20 for the year. Among three priorities for G20 2022 are global health infrastructure, digital economy and sustainable energy transition. This shows that the region, as much of the world, are betting much on digital transformation as the way out from the pandemic and the core pillar of their future development. There is a great political momentum behind building up the digital economy capacity, but the key remains a safe, sustainable and equitable transition.
Read more: Covid-19 and digitalization in Southeast Asia: a big leap forward but gaps widen too
Face recognition is not only the most talked about application of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies but also a key AI strength indicator of the tech heavyweights in the global arena. A face recognition application takes in a database containing millions of faces, based on which a machine learning model is trained for use in access control or attendance management systems. It is growingly applied by government agencies, banking institutions and service industries.
CB Insights' Artificial Intelligence Trends 2019 report identifies face recognition and edge computing as the two major trends with the most market strength and high industry adoption, even surpassing autonomous driving at the center of the automotive market's attention. The disruptive innovations to be enabled by face recognition applications are exciting. Papago chairman Liang-Yi Chien is well aware of how rapidly face recognition technologies and applications expand in the B2B market segment.
Read more: Papago eyeing Southeast Asia market with face recognition tech
The rate of violent crimes in Southeast Asia has decreased dramatically since 2009, with this drop in crime may in part be attributed to Southeast Asia’s growing interest in Smart Cities projects. This is where urban areas use digital and telecommunication technologies to create a safer and more efficient city for inhabitants.
Abhijit Shanbhag is CEO of Graymatics, a cognitive media processing company, providing AI-powered solutions for multiple sectors including security and surveillance, digital marketing, telecommunications and IoT. He believes that many more cities can and should improve their safety and efficiency by engaging in Smart Cities projects, and here shares how the use of AI in the Smart Cities scheme can help to create a safer society.
A strong, effective governance model is the cornerstone of a Smart Nation initiative, ensuring decisions and strategic investments are targeted, effective, and transparent.
Bring up the term "Smart Nation" anywhere in Singapore and, quite possibly, most people would associate it with government initiatives such as the SGQR code and SingPass mobile. Chances are that you will hardly find two people describe "Smart Nation" in the same way.
Read more: Southeast Asia: Smart City adoption needs tailored approach