In a concept note released during the 32nd Asean summit in Singapore in April, 26 South-east Asian cities were named pilot cities for the ASEAN Smart Cities Network. These include Singapore, Johor Baru, Phuket, Yangon, Phnom Penh, Vientiane, as well as the three recently-added Vietnamese cities of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang.

Initiated and led by Singapore, the Smart Cities Network aims to provide a platform for greater collaboration and capacity-building among Asean cities, with the goal of achieving smart and sustainable urban development across the member-states.

Given the emergence of complex urban challenges such as urban congestion, air and water pollution as well as terrorism, cities in the region have turned to ‘smart’ technologies such as sensors, data analytics and artificial intelligence as sources of potential policy solutions.

The network therefore aims to foster collaborations among Asean members who are involved in applying such smart technologies to urban policy issues.

There are also longer-term implications of the smart cities network. By tapping on several classic drivers of innovation, the network will generate greater opportunities for technological innovation and industrial development in the region.

First, smart urban technologies depend heavily on open-access platforms for the creation and proliferation of new solutions. This is evident in how networks such as open data platforms allow different stakeholders to come together and ‘co-create’ new applications and solutions.

The smart cities network expands such platforms to the regional level by providing governments, businesses and technopreneurs with a platform on which they can collaborate and co-create urban solutions across Asean.

This will allow policymakers to utilise the latest smart urban solutions, without having to ‘reinvent the wheel’ each time.

Aside from acting as a platform, the network also generates what is known in economics as ‘network effects’. This simply means that new technologies become more valuable as more people come to use them.

A popular example of this is WhatsApp, which overtook SMS messages to become the top platform for instant messaging, as cheaper data plans incentivised more consumers to switch to WhatsApp.

The smart cities network can potentially generate such network effects by providing technopreneurs and start-ups with access to a broader Asean market. Such access to a larger market can potentially expand the uptake of new technological solutions and innovations across Asean.

This is particularly important for Singapore’s nascent start-up sector, as it allows some tech start-ups to ‘scale up’ their services and technologies by opening up markets in the region.

Lastly, the network allows for the rapid diffusion of new technologies and ideas. Again, such technological transfers and diffusion have been crucial for smart cities and the technology sector.

It is through the diffusion of ideas and technologies that the sharing economy has proliferated, with initial ride-sharing players such as Uber inspiring other similar start-ups such as Grab and Lyft, among others. Such rapid diffusion of ideas and technologies will be crucial for the vibrancy and competitiveness of Singapore’s smart city eco-system.

In sum, Singapore stands to benefit from the smart cities network, with the regional platform allowing Singaporean start-ups and technopreneurs to collaborate with their counterparts across Asean, pick up new ideas, technologies and best practices as well as generate much-needed network effects.

Aside from developing its domestic tech and start-up sector, Singapore’s efforts to establish the network also alludes to a growing focus on technology and digitisation in its foreign policy efforts.

Such efforts are not new. Indeed, the smart cities network builds on Singapore’s existing efforts to engage other cities and countries through urban innovation.

For instance, Singapore has established three city-to-city collaborations with China, namely the Suzhou Industrial Park, Tianjin Eco-City and Chongqing Connectivity Initiative. In fact, a new set of agreements that were signed between Singapore and China will see the city-state play a bigger role in the implementation of Tianjin’s smart city masterplan.

These inter-urban collaborations will fit quite well with the recently launched Asean-China Year of Innovation, with Singapore’s roles as Asean Chair and China-Asean coordinator placing it at the forefront of such efforts to tap on China’s rapidly growing smart and digital sectors.

Aside from China, Singapore is also involved in the development of Amaravati, India’s up and coming smart city.

As these examples show, the notion of a smart city will feature strongly in Singapore’s future foreign policy efforts. Before the advent of Industry 4.0, Singapore’s efforts at regional integration and engagement had focused extensively on reducing trade barriers and fostering closer security cooperation.

However, the emergence of the new digital economy will necessitate closer cooperation on key issues such as smart city development and innovation.

The new smart cities network in particular will facilitate collaboration on a whole range of issues, including urban governance, security and anti-terrorism, and sustainable development.

Manifested in Singapore’s themes for its Asean Chairmanship, resilience and innovation, this growing focus on innovation and smart city development also heralds a deeper shift in Singapore’s foreign policy approach, with inter-urban collaborations centred on innovation and technology layered onto existing efforts at inter-state collaboration and alliances.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Woo Jun Jie is an assistant professor in the Public Policy & Global Affairs Programme of Nanyang Technological University, where he teaches Singapore politics and Singapore foreign policy.