BETTA&Partners

If you haven't heard about the smart city phenomenon yet, you will soon, if IHS Technology's report  about potential smart city growth proves accurate.The smart city trend is evolving quickly from one off-projects impacting single-function applications, such as street lighting or traffic flow, to large-scale, municipal capital investments integrating multiple city services and departments. IHS expect the number of  smart cities worldwide to quadruple within a 12-year period spanning from 2013 to 2025.Under IHS' definition, there will be at least 88 smart cities globally by 2025, up from 21 in 2013.Annual investment on smart city projects, which reached slightly more than one billion Dollar in 2013, is predicted to surpass twelve billion Dollar in 2025. Smart city definition vary, but IHS thinks of smart cities as those that have deployed-or are piloting-the integration of information, communications and technology (ICT) solutions across three or more different funct