Forrester Predictions 2022: Smart Infrastructure Investments Accelerate in APAC
- By Achim Granzen, Forrester
- November 22, 2021
When Forrester looked at internet-of-things (IoT) investment trends in the Asia Pacific (APAC) in early 2020, we found that smart manufacturing was the dominant market for IoT consultancies. Smart infrastructure was second. Enter COVID-19 and fast-forward to 2022, and we expect smart infrastructure investments to take the lead.
In 2022, investments in smart infrastructure will increase by 40%
Early adopters of IoT and edge technologies — also leveraging advanced networks like 5G — have already demonstrated that such technologies can empower smart, connected ports, roads, and trains. It’s a strong match, and in 2022, we expect smart infrastructure investments to gain remarkable growth, powered by a government spending windfall in most APAC countries.
Stakeholders will harness insights captured from edge devices and IoT-enabled infrastructure to modify traffic patterns and reduce congestion. They will leverage computer vision to deliver insights for security applications. And they will combine 5G, vehicle-to-everything (V2X), and edge technologies to enable autonomous vehicles in confined spaces such as ports and airports.
Endemic treatment of COVID-19 will drive new projects across use cases
With more and more governments shifting to an endemic treatment of COVID-19, we expect them to invest significantly in building smart infrastructure as a means of making their countries more adaptive (think transportation and logistics), resilient (think public safety and security), and also more creative (think new ways of working and sustainability). City planners will prioritize providing citizens with internet connectivity, addressing public health, and managing critical resources (e.g., water, power, lighting) using smart meters and predictive grid monitoring. For example, Singapore (considered by some the world’s smartest city) has just announced a S$175m booster to its Digitalization program, including urban transportation management and physically tracking patients in hospitals.
We also expect new projects to span singular use cases and leverage various technologies. For example, managing smart public infrastructures such as stadiums and transportation hubs will require crowd-flow management, building and vehicle management, and safety management. Operations of critical infrastructure such as public utilities will employ technologies for autonomous operations and a “manage from anywhere” imperative. And public safety and security will move from ubiquitous surveillance to enabling decisive and timely actions in case of threatening events.
Besides technology investments, these projects will lead to a significant transformation of stakeholders’ ways of working, embracing platform operating models where they orchestrate a multiplicity of platform participants to eventually deliver the relevant services that customers (citizens, commercial actors, or otherwise) expect of them.
To understand the major dynamics that will impact Asia Pacific organizations next year, download Forrester’s complimentary Predictions guide. To dive even deeper, check out our Predictions 2022 complimentary webinar series and engage directly with the analysts who made the predictions.
This post was written by Forrester’s principal analyst Achim Granzen, and it originally appeared here.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CDOTrends. Image credit: iStockphoto/Urupong