Reportedly, Google is looking ahead to partner with smart city-related businesses.
Google and LG Electronics have reported to be working together in order to develop and provide hardware and software technologies to upcoming smart city development projects that utilize information and communication technologies to increase the efficiency of urban services.
Google, at the first Google Cloud Summit in Seoul, South Korea, announced the partnership and its details. The two firms plan to work with real estate developers and investors to build smart towns powered by artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and big data analytics.
Rhee In-jong, Vice President of IoT and entrepreneur-in-residence at Google, stated during the summit’s press conference, “Google and LG will be providing solutions that contribute to the ‘smartness’ portion of new buildings and structures (built as part of smart towns).” He also said, for instance, the envisioned smart city solutions would monitor air quality, lighting, and temperature levels, and based on the data gathered recommend the most cost-efficient energy consumption model. Such complex procedures would run smoothly on one platform.
Reportedly, as smart city solution partners, LG Electronics to take charge of building the IoT-compatible devices, while Google to provide back-end technology capabilities such as cloud, AI and machine learning needed to store, process and analyze data generated by connected objects.
The smart cities are in the planning phase
According to Rhee In-jong, the smart towns envisioned by Google and LG include housing clusters, offices, commercial towns, hotels and business complexes being planned by real estate developers and investors today.
The Google executive has not reported about any specific smart city projects or potential sites under consideration, saying the two firms are still in the process of developing various technologies for now. “As we continue our technology development, we will have to carefully consider which sites we want to provide our products to,” Rhee stated.
Google is seeking partnerships with smart city-related businesses
When asked whether the company was considering partnerships with local companies other than LG in Korea in the future, Rhee told that the US tech giant is open to new partnerships with smart city-related businesses in Korea and abroad.
About Google Cloud Summit
The Google Cloud Summit is a regular conference held by Google to share the latest updates and news regarding Google’s cloud computing technologies with clients. It was organized in Korea for the first time this year, signaling the importance of the Korean market for Google’s cloud business, according to Rhee.
About Rhee In-jong
Rhee is also the former chief technology officer at Samsung Electronics, which competes with LG Electronics in various tech arenas including smart home devices. He was recruited by Google’s cloud computing business unit in February 2018 and is based at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.
