Thanks to technological advancement, smart cities are developing at higher levels. Singapore is recently building a 42,000-Home Smart City with one big central air conditioning unit. The new settlement will feature a car-free city centre, centralized air, and automated trash pickup. KSU newspaper showed that the Asia Pacific emerging technologies in the smart city market will grow by 32.2% annually over 2020-2030, owing to government initiatives and technological advancements (IoT, Cloud, AI, Big Data, 5G, edge computing). 

The vision of a smart city continues to play out in the post-Covid-19-era, but not as first formulated. Apart from enhancing residents’ quality of living and performances of public services, many smart city solutions in Asia regions double up as preventive efforts to curb the contagion. South Korea’s smart-city data hub system, for example, allowed health officials to conduct advanced contact tracing of Covid-19 patients. 

In addition, Covid-19 accelerates the adoption of telemedicine-based on the concept of the smart city in Asian countries. Due to lockdown, the global percentage of physicians using telehealth to see patients spiked from 22% in 2019 to 80% in 2020. Research from Bain & Company revealed that 91% of Asian consumers are willing to use digital health services if the costs are covered by an employer or insurance provider. Meanwhile, the number of new users on Ping An Good Doctor, a Chinese healthcare services platform, rose nearly 900% in 2020. As indicated by Healthcare Asia Magazine, Singapore-based telemedicine platform MyDoc recorded a 60% rise in the number of daily active users in 2020. Furthermore, Japan launched a free government-backed remote health service using digital health tools, and Indonesia’s Ministry of Health partnered with Gojek and telemedicine provider Halodoc for quick Covid-19 diagnostics in remote areas. 

It is true that digital infrastructure is a key driver in smart cities. The second wave of development is leveraging new-found data to unleash tremendous value, driving smarter decision-making by planners and individuals. However, when it comes to data privacy, it is critical for government and tech players to safeguard privacy as well as to develop a robust and secure data sharing system. 

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