Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) multinational NTT Group (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation) will conduct one of Asia’s first Smart City Proof of Concept (PoC) traffic improvement trials in the Cyberjaya area of Malaysia from February.
The PoC will focus on traffic congestion and road safety, with NTT adapting vehicle monitoring technology that it has previously deployed in its Las Vegas initiative. Cameras will be installed at Cyberjaya’s busiest intersection to analyse traffic volume and type, with the aim of reducing congestion and detecting stolen vehicles. For the Las Vegas project, NTT deployed high-definition video cameras, sound sensors, as well as IoT (Internet of Things) devices to monitor a geographic area within the city’s Innovation District. The NTT solution is a secure, distributed platform that deploys micro data centres to 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.
Making use of cognitive analytics, including the NTT Group’s Corevo artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies, the system learns normal patterns and can detect and alert the authorities of patterns that appear abnormal to reduce reaction times for first responders.
The project is part of a bilateral relationship between the two countries where Japanese companies are expected to share technologies and best practices to help tackle challenges and boost economic development in Malaysia. Last year, the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications launched the ‘Research on Smart City Model for Solving Social Problems in Malaysia’ project, based on the smart city initiatives that NTT started with the City of Las Vegas in the USA. The PoC will include various divisions of NTT Group, including NTT Communications, NTT Ltd, InfoCom Research, NTT Data and NTT Comware. Also taking part in the trial are local technology hub developer Cyberview, and infrastructure provider Allo, which will supply optic fibre networks.
Established in 1997 close to the capital Kuala Lumpur, the town of Cyberjaya is central to Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and has attracted many high-technology companies to its science park. Cyberjaya is also home to Malaysia’s first OpenLab and 5G testing network. Due to run until the end of March 2020, NTT’s PoC trials will explore whether it is feasible to transfer solutions that it has deployed in Las Vegas since 2019 to Malaysia, taking into account specific market trends, business models, legal systems and local issues. Based on the results of the PoC, NTT aims to promote the deployment of smart city solutions to Cyberjaya and other cities in Malaysia, as well as to ASEAN countries, with the aim of improving people’s living conditions, improving urban sustainability, and creating a smarter society.
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 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. NTT will customise the Las Vegas architecture and provide a similar solution to support the needs of local stakeholders in Malaysia.
