Huawei has expressed its desire to implement more smart city and safety tech inside Australia in the near future, a move sure to excite the country’s incumbent Liberal Party, which published a Smart Cities Plan in April.
The Chinese networking giant has two major platforms, Smart City and Safe Cities. The smart city platform integrates key data from the city and combines it with Internet of Things infrastructure to provide detailed reports on traffic, crime, energy usage, and other statistics.
See Also: Huawei focused on Internet of Things and virtual reality in 2016
“Australia is not facing too many major issues. [Australia] is like Canada – satisfied with what they have today,” said Joe So, chief technology officer of industry solutions at Huawei, to Electronics News. “However, every Western country is waiting for something bad to happen – then they say ‘I need this.’ Just like France and Belgium.”
So says that public safety could be crucial for Australia, because of its relationship with the United States and “where it stands in the world,” but he didn’t detail exact what smart safety Huawei would provide.
While Australia has not seen the same smart city development as Western developed countries, there has been some projects. Autonomous trucks are being tested for mining, and Huawei has worked on a smart sewage project with South East Water in Melbourne.
The $50 million investment from the Australian government should entice some developers, including Huawei, to implement smart city infrastructure. The U.S. had a similar smart city project, where hundreds of city leaders worked with private investors and smart city firms to propose new tech changes. Columbus, Ohio won that contest last month.
