Urban leaders power the future with Oracle

Data is at the core of successful smart city innovation, according to new research from Oracle and economic and urban research consultancy ESI ThoughtLab.

The Building a Hyperconnected City study found that cities are drowning in data from advancements such as Internet of Things (IoT). The survey projected that there will be more than 30 billion connected devices generating data by 2020. The study notes that for cities to become truly ‘smart’, they must have a cloud infrastructure in place to extract, integrate, and analyze this data to glean the insights needed to enhance everything from citizen services to building projects. The report surveyed 100 cities across the United States, APAC, EMEA and LATAM.

According to the study, the average return on investments in hyper-connected initiatives ranges from three - four percent. As cities become more interlinked, their ROI grows: cities just starting out realize a return of 1.8 percent for implementers and 2.6 percent for advancers, while hyper-connected leaders see a 5.0 percent boost. That can translate into enormous returns ranging from $19.6 million for implementers to $40.0 million for advancers and $83 million for hyper-connected leaders. 

-rmc//