Author

Kevin Davies

Published

5 January 2021

Estimated Read time

6Mins

Cities are increasingly, and massively, depending on water technology as sea levels continue to rise…

Water is the elephant in the room. As the IDTechEx report, “Smart Cities Market 2021-2041: Energy, Food, Water, Materials, Transportation Forecasts”, explains, cities increasingly and massively depend on water technology as sea levels rise and for other reasons. They will eliminate sewage systems by treating it where it is produced. Gone are thirsty, traditional agriculture systems, and their global supply chains. 

Stop killing the sea

Currently, cities are killing the sea that is increasingly near to them. Dead ocean areas are spreading. They do this with untreated sewerage, salt from desalination plants, chemicals from factories, leisure activities, marine vessels, and farm runoff of toxins and fertilizer. Instead, they must farm the sea and maintain biodiversity and create benign marine tourism and leisure activities. Methods of distributing salt from desalination without killing anything do now exist, but deployment is slow.

Cities on the sea

Smart cities are planned at sea and on reclaimed land as at Forest City Malaysia, which promises a veritable jungle with “sounds of nature” and all that greenery self-watering. You can buy a DND house on and under the sea in Dubai. 

Independence

Cities will make all their own food, fresh water, and electricity for reasons of empowerment, security, and cost. That electricity-making is even pivoting to water with tidal turbines installed from Scotland to the Hudson River in New York and wave power, both being almost continuous and using almost none of the steel and concrete that produces 16% of global warming. Take a few hours to drop them in – not 10 years as for hydro dams. Part of the reason for water power is that there is less and less land for wind turbines and solar farms. Indeed, silicon solar works better cold, so it is migrating to sea or lake as floatavoltaics. New photovoltaic materials are even useful underwater, and photovoltaic paint is on the way, as explained in the IDTechEx report, “Materials Opportunities in Emerging Photovoltaics 2020-2040”.

Leaders in tidal power such as Simec Atlantis and Verdant Power have more and more companies chasing them. You can say the same for wave power leaders such as Seabased, Wello, and Eco Wave. Even ORPC RivGen horizontal axis water turbines are proving viable in shallow rivers, and they do not disturb fish. Most water power is virtually continuous – no massive batteries. See the IDTechEx report, “Distributed Generation: Off-Grid Zero-Emission kW-MW 2020-2040”.

Leisure and freight on water

Obviously, cities will focus more of their leisure industry and freight transport on the water. See the IDTechEx report, “Electric Leisure & Sea-going Boats and Ships 2021-2040”. IDTechEx sees several ways that even large ships can become zero-emission when today they each pollute as much as millions of cars. At the other extreme, Swiss Seabubble aquaplaning water taxis are zero-emission, charged by small river turbines under the landing platform. They are planned for Paris.  

Smart agriculture

Today’s farming systems on land gulp water and boost global warming. They are replaced by vertical farming (see the IDTechEx report, “Vertical Farming 2020-2030”), solar greenhouses, hydroponics in buildings, aquaponics and saline agriculture in marshes as sea levels rise. Genetic agriculture will save water. See the IDTechEx report, “Genetic Technologies in Agriculture 2020-2030: Forecasts, Markets, Technologies”. Meat and milk will be grown in city laboratories, and managing with one percent of the fresh water will become commonplace. See the IDTechEx report, “Plant-based and Cultivated Meat 2020-2030”.

Soliculture greenhouses on rooftops and elsewhere are adopting smart glass that provides electricity for the robots as well as optimally growing the plants again with almost no water. Robotic food cultivation is integrated with human facilities in parts of China, saving space and water.

Fish farming and barley, samphire, seaweed, and other vegetable growing in saline water is a done deal back to the ancient Sumerians, but it is necessarily broadening in scope as global warming and people moving to cities makes land even more scarce. The amazing thing is that there is a roadmap of many options to go even further. For example, aquaponics uses even less land than hydroponics, and it costs less. This is growing fish and vegetables in one closed system, the fish excrement feeding the plants.

Smart Cities Systems

Smart gardening

Some are planning turf that produces electricity as well as tapping and filtering rainwater for use. Xeriscaping is appearing in smart cities. It is the process of landscaping or gardening that reduces or eliminates the need for supplemental water from irrigation. It is promoted in regions that do not have accessible, plentiful, or reliable supplies of fresh water and is gaining acceptance in other regions as access to irrigation water is becoming limited. Xeriscaping is an alternative to various types of traditional gardening in necessarily frugal smart cities. 

On the other hand, the trend to multi-purposing even extends to damp turf, vegetation, and soil. Plant-e is a company that develops products that can generate electricity from living plants, and Harvard University has biofuel cells using such fuels. 

Smart water transport

Transport systems are reinvented for smart cities, and necessarily, Hyperloop shooting passengers from city to city by magnetic levitation in a vacuum and Boring Company Loop shooting autonomous cars at high speed across cities will increasingly be tubes in sea, lake or river for at least part of the way. That even saves money. Autonomous underwater vehicles are zero-emission and they monitor offshore wind turbines, sea-floor mining, fish stocks, and more. Leisure submarines anyone – as taxis too?

Thirsty desert cities

The largest challenge of the $0.5 trillion NEOM smart city in the Saudi Arabian desert is drinking water – all desalinated from the sea. See the IDTechEx report, “Desalination: Off Grid Zero Emission 2018-2028”. The Bill Gates Belmont desert city in Arizona is nowhere near the sea, and the state gets its water from the Colorado River, which is drying up. By far its biggest challenge is water. It has to guarantee 100 years’ supply to be allowed to start. Arizona-based startup Zero Mass Water’s SOURCE photovoltaic panels make electricity but also use the sun’s rays to pull water from the air. Each panel has the potential to draw up to 10 litres (2.64 gallons) of water per day. That will help, but all the sources still leave that city with severe water conservation requirements.

Here is one. Bill Gates has proven from his investments that the elimination of sewage distribution and treatment farms is coming when it is treated at the source. That saves huge amounts of water. One new toilet has an electrochemical reactor that can break down water and human waste into fertilizer for fields and hydrogen, which can be stored in hydrogen fuel cells as a green energy source. Even the little water used is treated enough to reuse for flushing or for irrigation.

For more information on “Smart Cities Market 2021-2041: Energy, Food, Water, Materials, Transportation Forecasts”, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/SmartCitiesMats or for the full portfolio of Smart Cities research available from IDTechEx please visit www.IDTechEx.com/Research/SmartCities. 

IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research, Subscription and Consultancy products, helping you profit from emerging technologies. For more information, contact research@IDTechEx.com or visit www.IDTechEx.com. 

Author

Kevin Davies

Published

26 October 2020

Estimated Read time

3Mins

A new study from Business Fibre reveals the best cities to be a tech student around the world

A new index by Business Fibre has analysed 34 of the world’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) capital cities to find 2020’s best cities to be a tech student. The index has analysed each city according to metrics such as the number of universities offering technology and engineering courses, total tech companies and employees in each city, the monthly living cost and the top cities investing in tech-related research. See the index here. 

The top 10 cities to be a tech student

To find the world’s top cities to study technology, we have ranked each city according to a series of metrics to find the overall winners for those looking to start their career in technology. 

The metrics explored include budget spent on tech-related research, the number of people employed in professional, scientific and technical sectors, tech companies, monthly living costs as well as the number of top universities offering technology and engineering courses.

Introducing the top 10 cities to be a tech student…

  1. London, UK
  2. Berlin, Germany
  3. Jerusalem, Israel
  4. Bern, Switzerland
  5. Seoul, Korea
  6. Stockholm, Sweden
  7. Paris, France
  8. Canberra, Australia
  9. Rome, Italy
  10. Tokyo, Japan

Top cities contributing to tech research

Exploring Technology research spend, the study also finds the top cities who are consistently investing in technology research. This has been calculated by looking at the % of the total GDP spent on research.

RankCityResearch Spend (% of total GDP)
1Jerusalem, Israel4.8
2Seoul, Korea4.3
3Bern, Switzerland3.4
4Stockholm, Sweden3.4
5Tokyo, Japan3.2
6Berlin, Germany3.1
7Copenhagen, Denmark3.1
8Vienna, Austria3
9Helsinki, Finland2.7
10Brussels, Belgium2.7

The highest-ranking city is Jerusalem, which ranks high across all metrics and is the 3rd best city for tech students overall. The top three cities for tech-related research also include Seoul, spending 4.3% of the GDP, followed by Bern at 3.4. All three cities also rank high for the best universities and overall top cities for tech students. 

Top 10 universities to study technology worldwide

Based on the top 10 cities to be a tech student, we wanted to find the best universities in each city for aspiring students. To find the best universities BusinessFibre looked at metrics such as the total number of students, faculty staff and the number of international students. This alongside each universities global subject ranking for Engineering and Technology make up the top 10 tech universities in the world. The monthly cost of living has also been included so that students can be sure they’re studying at the best overall tech university.  

RankUniversityWorldwide ranking (Engineering and Tech 2020)City
1Imperial College London7London, UK
2Technical University of Munich25Berlin, Germany
3Technion – Israel Institute of Technology179Jerusalem, Israel
4ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology4Bern, Switzerland
5Seoul National University22Seoul, Korea
6KTH Royal Institute of Technology30Stockholm, Sweden
7Ecole Polytechnique57Paris, France
8The Australian National University71Canberra, Australia
9Sapienza University of Rome127Rome, Italy
10The University of Tokyo21Tokyo, Japan

Comment from Ian Wright: “With technology arguably being the fastest growing and most profitable industry in the world, we wanted to find the best cities in the world to be a tech student as well as the top cities funding technology-related research.  

It’s clear from the research that London, Berlin and Jerusalem are the best cities for students, while Seoul and Bern join Jerusalem at the top for investing in technology-related research. 

For those who don’t want to spend a ton of money on their education, Seoul National University is a great option that offers a lower living cost while still having a good global university ranking.”

Author

Kevin Davies

Published

9 July 2019

Estimated Read time

4Mins

Latest whitepaper provides detailed study of benefits and challenges for smart buildings and city management and highlights methodology to effectively…

Latest whitepaper provides detailed study of benefits and challenges for smart buildings and city management and highlights methodology to effectively address associated security risks

Axis Communications, the market leader in network video technology, has today announced the release of its latest whitepaper, Smart Buildings & Smart Cities Security. Authored in association with Virtually Informed and Unified Security, the whitepaper is the third in a series looking at specific aspects of security and provides an in depth review of the topic, addresses key questions and, importantly, provides recommendations that must be considered if the smart promise is to become a reality.

Against the global backdrop of population growth, the strain on limited resources and climate change, there is a growing demand for businesses and governments around the world to deliver significant improvements in the way our cities and the buildings within them are managed. The promise of future cities and buildings built around a smart vision to reduce waste, drive efficiencies and optimise resources is a prodigious one with many inherent challenges, not least, security.

Smart technology enables the collection and analysis of data to create actionable and automated events that will streamline operations. To deliver this at far greater scale means bringing together a large number of very different systems and empowering them to communicate freely with access to important and often sensitive data. Device interoperability will be a crucial component of its success but to have full confidence in the way that these diverse ecosystems operate together, and to ultimately cede important decision-making to them, stakeholders must be fully confident in the security of the systems.

The proliferation of IoT devices has witnessed in parallel an exponential increase in the number of threat exposures and attack vectors, that put in jeopardy the systems that our smart cities and buildings will rely on. With an ever-increasing number of cyber breaches and a common acknowledgment that ‘you are only as strong as your weakest link’, it is important that cybersecurity is considered and evaluated throughout the whole supply chain to protect data, maintain privacy and keep risk associated with cyber threats to a minimum. This process should always start by looking at device security and the vendors’ cyber maturity.

Managing cybersecurity in environments of this scale involves drawing up thorough risk assessments that go right back through the supply chain. Identifying vulnerabilities and mitigating the potential for damage that they could cause. Axis’Smart Buildings & Smart Cities Security whitepaper topics include:

  • Smart cities and why we need them – Smart cities are increasingly playing a significant role in meeting today’s resource and population challenges
  • Smart and intelligent technology – Smart devices, systems, buildings and cities defined – questions and issues around existing definitions are addressed
  • Roles and responsibilities – Review stakeholder roles and security risk management to better understand the security issues associated with smart building systems
  • Security challenges – Threat vectors are vast and varied with increasing levels of sophistication; understand the vulnerabilities, technologies and standards to be applied
  • Recommendations – Getting started; security standards and frameworks; product strategy, system and solution security; supply and purchasing; and converged operations.

The associated disruption as a result of a cybersecurity breach of a smart system could be catastrophic. At a minimum, it would cause system downtime and impact its ability to operate. The loss of personal data or IP may also damage reputation, impact a company’s share price or even cause actual physical harm. Ensuring that converged security becomes a vital component of this rapidly changing paradigm is of critical importance; safety and security must be at the heart of the shared ambitions for a smarter environment.

Steven Kenny, Industry Liaison, Architecture and Engineering at Axis Communications commented:
“At Axis we are passionate about using technology to help create a smarter and safer world. We also believe that technology should be used in an ethical and responsible way. You might say that this whitepaper reflects the very values of our business in that, used responsibly and with security front and centre, smart technology will help us address the big challenges of our time. Increasing efficiencies is vital in meeting carbon reduction targets and avoiding climate catastrophe. The smart vision provides a strong basis for economic growth and improved quality of life. We greatly admire the work that Virtually Informed and Unified Security are doing to help ensure that the worlds of physical and cyber security are aligned and working together to achieve a common goal of increased safety and security for all.”

The whitepaper’s two authors have impressive credentials. James Willison is the founder of Unified Security Ltd and one of IFSEC Global’s top 20 Security thought leaders in the world. Sarb Sembhi is the CTO and CISO at Virtually Informed and has contributed on security projects for the likes of the London Chamber of Commerce and the Internet of Things Security Foundation. Mr. Sembhi also sits on the editorial board of SC magazine.