Las Vegas said that it aims to deploy smart city solutions under this agreement by mid-2019
The state of Nevada, city of Las Vegas and Japan’s NTT Group have reached an agreement to advance and accelerate smart technologies, following a smart city proof-of-concept initiative that began in September.
Under the agreement, NTT Group will provide commercial smart city solutions to Las Vegas.
Las Vegas will start trials of the smart city solutions in the spring of 2019, with the aim of full-scale service beginning in summer 2019. Las Vegas, the state of Nevada and NTT will also “explore opportunities to partner on a new briefing center in downtown Las Vegas focused on technology with an emphasis on connected communities, as well as additional areas and cities to implement the smart city offering,” according to the partners.
NTT Group has deployed high-definition video cameras, sound sensors, as well as internet of things devices to monitor a geographic area within the city’s innovation district. The POC provides information to city personnel to help increase situation awareness and provide a foundation for traffic management and mobility that is supposed to help create future economic opportunities.
“This announcement is a continuation of the strong partnership between Nevada, Las Vegas and NTT,” said Governor Brian Sandoval in a statement. “In August, during the trade mission to Japan, we were able to meet and discuss opportunities like this to ensure Las Vegas is not only a smart city, but the smartest city. I am excited about this opportunity in Las Vegas, and I look forward to watching Nevada become the foremost leader for smart regions in the country.”
The NTT solution is a distributed platform that deploys micro-data centers and sensors in the designated area to improve situational awareness through video and sound data, while also integrating historical data sources, such as crime, weather and social media data. By leveraging cognitive analytics, including NTT Group’s corevo artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, the system learns normal patterns and can detect and alert the authorities of patterns that appear abnormal to reduce response times for first responders, NTT said.
The smart city solution is built on NTT’s innovative Cognitive Foundation architecture, which enables remote creation, management and operation of information and communications technology (ICT) resources, from devices and networks to the cloud. It also incorporates Dell EMC’s hyperconverged infrastructure and IoT gateways, as well as VMware’s virtualization software hosting predictive analytics applications.
The connected technologies and Smart City efforts are part of the city’s larger initiative, Innovate.Vegas, which was created to help provide safe, reliable and efficient civic technology that stimulated economic growth.
“The success of our smart city proof of concept in Las Vegas showcases how we can use technology to create a more connected society,” said Jun Sawada, president and CEO of NTT. “We plan to leverage and expand our connected technologies to other cities in Nevada, while also deploying similar solutions that will benefit stadiums, manufacturing facilities and other locations where we can help improve public safety.”
