Creating the world’s most liveable smart city.
One of the world’s most liveable cities is evolving into one of its most advanced. Fukuoka will bring together cutting-edge technology, innovative thinkers, and sustainable practices to create the largest smart city in Japan. Join us as we develop the future of smart living!
Fukuoka Smart East
Fukuoka Smart East: Creating a smart city to be proud of in the future
In Fukuoka City, Japan, the Fukuoka Smart East initiative has begun to take on the challenge of creating a smart city that solves various social issues through cutting-edge technologies and groundbreaking ideas.
What is Fukuoka Smart East?
This project aims to create a model city that can be proud of its future by creating comfortable, high-quality lifestyles and urban spaces through the introduction of cutting-edge technologies, in order to achieve sustainable development while solving various urban development issues, such as the declining birthrate and aging population.
What kind of things will become social issues?
It is said that Japan will face a variety of social issues in the future, including population decline, falling birthrates, aging population, energy and environmental problems.
For example, it is predicted that one in three people will be elderly by 2036, which will have an impact on society, and there are also concerns about a shortage of workers due to the declining birth rate. In addition, technology will become more prevalent in many aspects of daily life, while cyber security threats and the importance of energy and back-up in times of disaster will become more important. It will be necessary to solve these issues while developing sustainably.
What can we do to solve them?
The key to solving social issues lies in advanced technologies and groundbreaking ideas, known as “innovation”.
For example, AI (artificial intelligence) and robot automation will enable self-driving, and telemedicine will become possible through communications that have dramatically improved image and sound quality.
Starting with Hakozaki
Fukuoka Smart East will start with Hakozaki (the former site of Kyushu University’s Hakozaki Campus) as a pioneer in smart city development, and then spread to the entire city and beyond.
Smart city development in Hakozaki
For the former Hakozaki campus site, a “Grand Design” was formulated in 2018 to show the overall vision of the smart city development of the site and the direction of development rules, etc., and we are working on urban development to realize this Grand Design.
In 2023, Kyushu University and other related organizations accepted applications for land use business operators for the site, and in April 2024, a group represented by Sumitomo Corporation was selected as the preferred negotiating party.
Fukuoka City will participate in the specific discussions currently underway between the preferred negotiating party and Kyushu University, which owns the land, and will work toward the creation of a favorable urban environment.
Conducting a PoC demonstration ahead of time
We believe that the quickest way for people to understand what does the goal of Fukuoka Smart East, “Solving urban development issues with advanced technology,” mean or what kind of technologies are available, is to have them actually see and experience them for themselves.
Therefore, we have been conducting PoC demonstrations in Hakozaki, prior to the smart city development. We will continue to have demonstrations and workshops in the future, as we aim to create a smart city that does not stop, but continues to update itself in response to new social issues that arise.
What kinds of PoC demonstration and workshops have we conducted so far?
We have conducted demonstrations and workshops in a variety of fields, including self-driving buses, electric kickboards, online medical treatment using TVs, autonomous sterilization robots, and child monitoring.
Demonstration events conducted by the consortium
Consideration of Self-driving Buses
The FUKUOKA Smart EAST Mobility Promotion Consortium, in which Fukuoka City participates, is working toward the social implementation of self-driving mobility.
FUKUOKA Smart EAST Mobility Promotion Consortium website
NEWS
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