The White House plans to spend at least $160 million on a new initiative that aims to advance the development of new smart city applications for local communities to enhance service delivery, promote economic growth and address climate change, CNET reported Monday.Under the Smart Cities program, the Obama administration will allocate more than $115 million in funds to projects that seek to develop new tools for health, transportation, energy, safety and climate preparedness efforts through the departments of Energy, Transportation and Homeland Security, among other federal agencies, Marguerite Reardon writes.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology will spend over $10 million on a research facility that will create technological platforms intended for smart cities and launch the Global City Teams Challenge to promote the development of “smart city†tools.
The National Science Foundation plans to award grants worth at least $35 million and has selected US Ignite and the University of Chicago as among the initial grant recipients, Reardon reports.
US Ignite will use a $6 million grant to set up a store for smart city apps, while the University of Chicago will direct the NSFÂ grant worth $3 million towards the development of an Internet-connected sensor network that will work to collect physical measurements in Chicago, according to the report.
