White House Announces New Smart Cities Investments, Planned Releases

The National Science Foundation is giving $10 million “in new awards to develop and scale next-generation Internet applications and technologies through the US Ignite program, supporting access to the gigabit-enabled networks and services that bring data and analytics to decision-makers in real time,” the White House said Monday in a fact sheet on its Smart Cities initiative. Four new cities joined US Ignite’s Smart Gigabit Communities network: Albuquerque, New Mexico; Adelaide, Australia; Salisbury, North Carolina; and Washington, D.C. “Four additional companies are joining the Administration’s NSF-led Advanced Wireless Research Initiative, collectively committing over $8 million in in-kind contributions to help support the design, deployment, and operation of four city-scale advanced wireless testing platforms,” the White House added: Anritsu, Crown Castle, Ericsson and FiberTower. Some $4 million of NSF money also would go toward “new Cyber-Physical Systems awards focused on Smart & Connected Communities, which would “help establish the technological foundation for smart cities and the Internet of Things, which enables connection of physical devices at enormous scale to the digital world through sensors and other IT infrastructure,” the administration said. The White House also said NTIA “is releasing a new toolkit to help communities leverage private-sector resources and expertise to advance smart cities” and that the National Institute of Standards and Technology “and its collaborators are announcing a new international coalition dedicated to developing an Internet of Things-Enabled Smart City Framework, with an initial release planned for next summer.”