The Center for Energy at the Austrian Institute of Technology has launched a City Intelligence Lab (CIL) in an effort to produce smart city solutions that are based more around the needs of residents rather than urban planning.
The laboratory is intended to enable urban planning professionals to devise new ideas and technologies for smart cities. The laboratory functions as an interactive platform through leveraging the latest digital planning tools through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data.
“In establishing this laboratory, we have produced a platform and a space for experimentation, what you could call a sort of medical laboratory for digital technologies,” said the ehad of competence unit for digital resilient cities at the Center for Energy, Nikolas Neubert.
The use of key emerging technologies like AI and augmented reality (AR), will enable them to develop simulations and parametric designs.
The lab has been designed to create the ultimate creative, collaborative planning environment for the experts. AI-based urban planning models and interactive projection screens are among some of the technologies that CIL is equipped with.
“The innovative achievement of tomorrow’s urban planning will be to apply digital technologies in order to create diverse planning scenarios which offer a broad portfolio of solutions for cities and their inhabitants. We have created the infrastructure necessary to do this,” stated Neubert.
Head of the Center of Energy, Wolfgang Hribernik, stated, “The City Intelligence Lab at the Centre for Energy is bringing about a paradigm shift by using digital technologies to include user perspectives, making the lab an international model when it comes to urban planning processes of the future.”
He added, “Functioning as an interactive platform, [CIL] combines innovative processes with the latest digital planning tools using big data and artificial intelligence. It is therefore able to realistically simulate and run through scenarios such as the climate situation in different parts of the city.”