Technology

Infographic: The Anatomy of a Smart City

Published

4 years ago

January 2, 2019

Jeff Desjardins

The Anatomy of a Smart City

There is no doubt that the city will be the defining feature of human geography for the 21st century.

Globally, there are 1.3 million people moving to cities each week – and by 2040, a staggering 65% of the world’s population will live in cities.

At the same time, the 600 biggest urban areas already account for 60% of global GDP, and this will only rise higher as cities become larger and more prosperous. In fact, experts estimate that up to 80% of future economic growth in developing regions will occur in cities alone.

The Smart City: A Necessary Step

As cities become an even more important driver of the global economy and wealth, it’s becoming crucial to ensure that they are optimized to maximize efficiency and sustainability, while enhancing the quality of life in each urban conglomeration.

Today’s infographic from Postscapes helps define the need for smart cities, and it also gives great examples of how technology can be applied in urban settings to facilitate cities that work better for their citizens.

Features of Tomorrow’s Cities

Smart cities will use low power sensors, wireless networks, and mobile-based applications to measure and optimize everything within cities.

Here are just some examples: (click below image to open full-size version)

Smart city solutions will fall into six broad categories, transforming the urban landscape:

1. Infrastructure
Smart lighting is one of the most important solutions that will be implemented in citywide infrastructure. While smart lighting sounds trivial at first glance, it’s worth noting that lighting alone consumes a whopping 19% of the world’s total electricity.

2. Buildings
Heating, energy usage, lighting, and ventilation will be managed and optimized by technology. Solar panels will be integrated into building design, replacing traditional materials. Fire detection and extinguishing is tailored to individual rooms.

3. Utilities
Smart grids (used for energy consumption monitoring and management), water leakage detection, and water potability monitoring are just some smart city aspects on the utilities side.

4. Transport
Intelligent, adaptive fast lanes and slow lanes (cycling, walking) will be implemented, while charging stations through the city will power EVs.

5. Environment
Air pollution control, renewable energy, and waste management solutions will make for greener cities. Rooftop gardens or side vegetation will be integrated into building designs, to help with insulation, provide oxygen, and absorb CO2.

6. Life
There will be citywide Wi-Fi for public use, while real-time updates will provide citizens information on traffic congestion, parking spaces, and other city amenities.

The Effect?

Cisco estimates that smarter cities will have impressive increases in efficiency: using many of the above concepts, cities can improve energy efficiency by 30% in 20 years.

Simultaneously, it’s estimated that the broad market for smart cities products and services will be worth $2.57 trillion by 2025, growing at a clip of 18.4% per year on average.

Related Topics:smart city tech cities urbanization

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Business

Ranked: America’s Largest Semiconductor Companies

This graphic visualizes the market capitalizations of America’s 15 largest semiconductor companies.

Published

4 days ago

June 5, 2023

Marcus Lu

Ranking America’s Largest Semiconductor Companies

As our world moves further into an era of widespread digitization, few industries can be considered as important as semiconductors.

These components are found in almost everything we use on a daily basis, and the ability to produce them domestically has become a topic of national security. For example, in 2022 the Biden administration announced the CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to strengthen America’s position in everything from clean energy to artificial intelligence.

With this in mind, we’ve ranked the top 15 U.S. semiconductor companies by their market capitalizations.

Data and Highlights

The data we used to create this infographic is listed in the table below. Year-to-date (YTD) returns were included for additional context. Both metrics are as of May 30, 2023.

Rank	Company	Ticker	Market Cap (USD billions)	YTD Return
1	Nvidia	NVDA	$992	180.2%
2	Broadcom	AVGO	$335	45.1%
3	AMD	AMD	$202	95.7%
4	Texas Instruments	TXN	$160	8.2%
5	Qualcomm	QCOM	$129	8.2%
6	Intel	INTC	$125	12.2%
7	Applied Materials	AMAT	$115	41.2%
8	Analog Devices	ADI	$89	9.2%
9	Lam Research	LRCX	$85	52.1%
10	Micron Technology	MU	$78	42.3%
11	Snyopsys	SNPS	$71	45.4%
12	KLA	KLAC	$63	21.8%
13	Marvell Technology Group	MRVL	$54	76.2%
14	Microchip Technology	MCHP	$42	11.2%
15	ON Semiconductor	ON	$36	36.3%

At the top is Nvidia, which became America’s newest $1 trillion company on Tuesday, May 30th. Shares pulled back slightly over the day and Nvidia closed at $992 billion. Over the past decade, Nvidia has transformed from a gaming-focused graphics card producer to a global leader in AI and data center chips.

In third and sixth place are two of America’s most well known chipmakers, AMD and Intel. These longtime rivals are moving in opposite trajectories, with AMD shares climbing 770% over the past five years, and Intel shares falling 47%. One reason for this is the data center segment, in which AMD appears to be stealing market share from Intel.

Further down the list we see Applied Materials in seventh, and Lam Research in ninth. Both firms specialize in semiconductor manufacturing equipment and thus play an important role in the industry’s supply chain.

Trade War Impacts

As tensions between the U.S. and China escalate, chipmakers are becoming increasingly entangled in geopolitical conflict.

In October 2022, the Biden administration introduced new export controls aimed at blocking China’s access to semiconductors produced with U.S. equipment. This impacted several companies in our top 15 list, including Lam Research and Applied Materials.

Shortly after the export controls were announced, Lam Research said it expected to lose upwards of $2.5 billion in annual revenues.

We lost some very profitable customers in the China region, and that’s going to persist, obviously.
– Doug Bettinger, CFO, Lam Research

In response, China announced in May 2023 that it would no longer allow America’s largest memory chipmaker, Micron, to sell its products to “critical national infrastructure operators”.

This is not the first time Micron has been involved in a controversy with China. In 2018, the firm alleged that Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit, a Chinese state-owned company, had solicited a Micron employee to steal specifications for memory chips. The U.S. Department of Commerce imposed export restrictions on Fujian Jinhua as a result.

Chipmakers on both sides of the Pacific will be closely watching as competition between these two countries heats up.