Technology spending for powering Smart City initiatives will reach $80 billion in 2018, according to IDC.
IDC said technology spending for smart city projects will accelerate over the 2016-2021 forecast period, growing to $135 billion in 2021.
“The strategic priorities we identified will drive digital transformation across cities of all sizes, but our research demonstrates that there can be significant differences in the focus of investments across regions,” Serena Da Rold, program manager in IDC’s Customer Insights & Analysis Group, said.
Most technology spending in 2018 will be on intelligent transportation, data-driven public safety, and resilient energy and infrastructure. Intelligent traffic and transit and fixed visual surveillance are the two largest use cases in terms of spending, followed by smart outdoor lighting and environmental monitoring.
The United States, Japan, and Western Europe will give top priority to intelligent traffic and transit.
Fixed visual surveillance will be the leading smart city technology use case in China and the second largest in the United States, while environmental monitoring will be relatively more important in Japan.
Smart city technology spending in the United States will reach $22 billion in 2018. China will be spending nearly $21 billion on smart city technologies. Latin America with 28.7 percent CAGR and Canada with 22.5 percent CAGR will see the fastest spending growth in smart city technology space.
