Las Vegas, Nevada is teaming up with NTT Group to go forward with a smart cities proof of concept project that launched in September.
The city will start using NTT’s smart city offerings across local government in 2019. Las Vegas is also exploring opportunities to partner on a new briefing center in downtown Las Vegas focused on technology with an emphasis on connected communities. Through the briefing center, both Las Vegas and NTT could engage with other cities on additional smart cities projects.
NTT’s project is designed to help increase situational awareness and provide a foundation to traffic management and mobility. NTT Group deployed high-definition video cameras, sound sensors, as well as IoT devices to monitor a geographic area within the city’s Innovation District. Through the use of cognitive analytics, the system learns normal patterns and can detect and alert the authorities of patterns that appear abnormal to reduce response times for first responders.
Governor Brian Sandoval says the work with NTT is part of an ongoing relationship to help Las Vegas and make the city into a testing ground that other localities can learn from. “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,” Governor Sandoval said.
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.
In May, NTT partnered with Dell to build out its smart cities program. The smart city solution is built on NTT Group’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 will also combine Dell EMC hyperconverged infrastructure and IoT gateways and VMware vCloud NFV platform hosting predictive analytics applications.
Once the proof of concept is complete, the city will be able to use data analytics to improve safety. Las Vegas can then take advantage of machine learning to improve response times for public safety incidents. After a successful proof of concept in the City of Las Vegas, NTT Group is planning to introduce additional similar initiatives in other U.S. cities.
