Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program expands to over 400 members

Qualcomm said its smart cities and internet of things (IoT) ecosystem now has more than 400 tech companies participating as it crosses the third year of its Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program.

The group includes system integrators, hardware and software providers, cloud solution providers, design and manufacturing companies, and more — all focused on delivering smart end-to-end solutions for modern cities, spaces, and enterprises.

Qualcomm made a number of IoT announcements today at its third annual Smart Cities Accelerate event in La Jolla, California. The company argued that it continues to lead the IoT ecosystem with the growth of the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program and momentum of the Qualcomm IoT Services Suite.

The comprehensive strategy of delivering IoT-as-a-service with a massive ecosystem is helping industries and cities adopt end-to-end smart solutions, making it easier, faster, and more cost-effective to manage and deploy smart spaces across industries including education, logistics, health care, transportation, inspection, energy, agriculture, and more.

Above: Qualcomm is going wide and deep on smart cities.

Image Credit: Qualcomm

Sanjeet Pandit, Qualcomm’s global head of smart cities, said in an interview with VentureBeat that the company is enabling IoT-as-a-service through its services suite.

“This was an extremely fragmented space, and so the first thing we did was create a smart city accelerator program,” Pandit said. “Apologies for the analogy. But I would call this the Match.com of smart cities, where we bring everybody under one roof. And the ecosystem is nurtured by getting everybody to know everyone and to cooperate with each other.”

The event featured a talk with Earvin “Magic” Johnson and city mayors — including Tishaura Jones of St. Louis, Sam Liccardo of San Jose, and Francis Suarez of Miami — coming together to discuss their visions for smart cities, the technologies needed for post-pandemic communities, closing the digital divide, and working together with companies like Qualcomm.

Above: Qualcomm’s smart cities approach to construction.

Image Credit: Qualcomm

Pandit said Qualcomm’s IoT-as-a-service has grown to 30 vertical markets — ranging from construction to warehouse management, first-responder services, inspections, and wildfire monitoring — in less than a year. The company helps cities implement the technologies in their markets by gathering all of the vendors and offering a solution for them to implement.

“We have everything from warehousing to location-as-a-service to smarter hospitals to oil and natural gas to agriculture to inspection,” Pandit said. “Everything is out of the box with hardware, software, dashboards — everything is integrated with commercially available devices ready to deploy for monetization.”

Qualcomm’s aim is to show it can lead the digital transformation of industries with a differentiated approach that leverages the growing number of smart devices that make up the connected intelligent edge. Qualcomm said Booz Allen Hamilton has joined the program as a system integrator for ecosystem members.

The companies have collaborated on projects such as smart marine bases and naval fleet carriers, using vision intelligence and AI-infused cameras. Qualcomm said the event had more than 1,000 registrants.

“We have now taken the fragmentation out of the equation with solutions that are plug and play,” he said.