Annual technology spending by smart cities in the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region is expected to double from USD 1.3 billion to USD 2.7 billion in the next four years, according to KPMG report ‘The Rise of Smart Cities – Digital Transformation in the Public Sector’.
Dr Samer Abdallah, Head of Digital, KPMG Al Fozan & Partners in Saudi Arabia said that Riyadh and Dubai are the top spenders when it comes to the development of smart cities. “Given the Saudi government’s move to embrace digital transformation in alignment with Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020, information technology (IT) spending in the Kingdom is slated to grow by at least 14 percent each year,” he said.
Global smart city spending is set to accelerate from USD 81 billion in 2018 to USD 158 billion by 2022, Mr Abdallah said, citing data from International Data Corporation. The critical success factors of digital transformation of a city include an individual strategy, a holistic approach, and technology partners. This entails several challenges such as cyber risk, technology gap, funding gap and skills gap, which need to be appropriately addressed.
