The emergence of social issues associated with expanding urbanization and the increasing need to reduce public budgets are the two main reasons why smart cities are gaining so much attention. According to the UN estimates, the number of cities with a population of 10 million or more is expected to increase from 33 to 43 between 2018 and 2030. According to Maoqiu Technology Industry Research Department, while urbanization is said to bring strong economic power due to the concentration of population and industry, it also has its risks, including the possibility of increased congestion and environmental problems.
secondary title
Blockchain will take on the role of data exchange in smart cities
Advanced technologies, including blockchain, can play a key role in solving the aforementioned social problems and enabling efficient city management. Blockchain enables network participants to exchange data with a high degree of reliability and transparency without the need for a centralized administrator. This point is considered crucial by the Fuqiu Science and Technology Research Department. There are various stakeholders in cities, and data exchange between stakeholders is indispensable for highly convenient urban services.
image description
(Dubai is developing blockchain use cases for various sectors such as finance, education and transportation)
The Dubai Blockchain Strategy will help Dubai achieve Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid by making Dubai the first city fully powered by blockchain in 2020 and making Dubai the happiest city on earth The Vision of Al Maktoum. The strategy will use 3 strategic pillars: government effectiveness, industry creation and international leadership.
secondary title
The importance of interoperability for building smart cities
According to the G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance, the body of the World Economic Forums secretariat, municipalities, regions, national governments, private sector partners and city dwellers come together around a set of core guiding principles to implement smart city technologies, including open and interoperability.
According to the recently released interoperability framework study text, from which smart cities can learn interoperability implementation methods, this framework study text mentions three model layers of blockchain:
Business model layer: This layer includes aspects such as governance model, data standardization, legal framework and business model.
Platform layer: This layer includes consensus mechanism, smart contract, authentication and authorization.
Infrastructure layer: This layer includes hybrid cloud, hosted blockchain, and proprietary components.
It is important to note that achieving interoperability requires not only solving technical problems, but also issues such as governance, data ownership and business models to incentivize ecosystem stakeholders to collaborate with each other.
How to understand it? Maoqiu Technology takes an expected service in a smart city as an example——Mobility as a Service (MaaS). MaaS seamlessly connects multiple transportation systems to provide highly convenient travel services. In MaaS, blockchain is utilized for data exchange and revenue sharing among multiple shipping and operators.
At the MaaS business model level, first, data standardization issues need to be addressed, such as personnel flow information and data collected from Internet of Things (Iota) devices; second, business model issues need to be addressed, such as how to distribute revenue among traffic operators .
At the MaaS platform level, smart contracts, as a computer protocol capable of automatic execution, credible and transparent transactions, can be used for transportation ticketing. However, different blockchain platforms sometimes use different languages for smart contracts, so ticketing interoperability issues may need to be addressed.
At the MaaS infrastructure level, the presence of proprietary components may enable interoperability as permissioned blockchains are often used for data exchange across multiple transportation systems.
epilogue
epilogue
Smart cities have the potential to solve various social problems and improve the quality of life, but for smart cities, it is crucial to ensure interoperability and mutual cooperation, and the use of blockchain technology can well solve the problem of interoperability and mutual trust. question.
As the blockchain and its supporting technologies gradually mature, its role in boosting and guaranteeing data production, collection, processing, transmission, storage, mining and utilization, and revenue distribution will be more fully demonstrated. It can not only effectively promote the co-collection, sharing and credible circulation of urban data, but also fully protect data security and income rights. Maoqiu Technology Research Department believes that in the future, the popularization and application of blockchain technology will strongly promote the development of new smart cities to a deeper and higher level.
