Nokia Launches $1.5 Billion 'Smart Cities' Initiative in Canada

Nokia has partnered with investment firm Smart City Capital to help foster the growth of data-rich "smart cities" throughout Canada.

The firm has made available more than $2 billion CAD ($1.5 billion USD) to cities seeking to adopt high-tech approaches to public safety and transportation, particularly autonomous vehicle technologies. The joint program also offers access to an ecosystem of companies offering funding packages, technology, communications infrastructure, architecture and engineering services, and other capacity support. It is designed as private-sector counterpart to Canada's Smart Cities Challenge, according to Nokia.

"Canada has huge smart city potential," Chris Teale writes in Smart Cities Dive, citing Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs in Toronto. And this is not Nokia's first foray into the smart city industry, he notes. The Finnish telecommunications company already offers "an Internet of Things (IoT) operations center, blockchain-based data analytics (dubbed ‘Sensing as a Service’) and a secure mobile virtual network operator (S-MVNO) for public safety agencies," per Teale.