Smart city spending to double by 2022 in the Middle East and Africa

The amount spent by smart cities on technology is set to double in the coming four years within the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.

The total spending is anticipated to increase from $1.3bn to $2.7bn during the review period, according to a recent report released by KPMG.

The report is titled ‘The Rise of Smart Cities – Digital Transformation in the Public Sector’.

Dr Samer Abdallah, Head of Digital Transformation at KPMG Saudi Arabia, announced that the leaders in smart city development are Riyadh and Dubai at the Digital Saudi 2030 conference.

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“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 per cent each year,” Abdallah stated.

Smart city spending across the world is expected to expand from $81bn in 2018 to $158bn by 2022, Abdallah revealed using statistics from the International Data Corporation.

“As Saudi Arabia makes great strides to build a sophisticated digital infrastructure under its Vision 2030, cloud computing will be a catalyst for digital transformation,” Abdallah said at the “Race to the Cloud: Present and the future of cloud platforms in fuelling Artificial Intelligence’ presentation.