An Australian business delegation has announced its interest in investing and exploring potential opportunities that may arise from India's nationwide 'smart cities' program. The business consortium is made up of 35 members - and they flew in India this week to meet with those tasked with the responsibility of leading the smart cities initiative.

India's largest telecom services provider, Bharti Airtel, announced a strategic partnership with South Korean telecom provider SK Telecom, under which the Indian comapny will leverage SK Telekom's expertise to build the "most advanced telecom network in India".

British entrepreneur and founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson has announced plans to construct an ambitious high-speed Hyperloop system specifically designed to revolutionize the transportation industry in India.

China's government has made no secret of its ambition to become a global leader in AI - previously stating that it envisaged itself to have achieved that target by 2030. However, it has now received a timely boost following the news that three of the country's largest technology companies have joined forced to create an AI Challenger contest.

Dell Technologies, Vehant Technologies, and Graymatics and Wordsensing have decided to collaborate to develop and deliver smart city solutions in the areas of ‘Intelligent Traffic Management’ and ‘Safe City’ in India.

Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the leading financial hub in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA), has partnered with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the world’s largest non-profit entrepreneurial organisation, to help Indian FinTechs scale their businesses across the region. Throughout a two-day programme, DIFC met with 17 FinTech startups from Mumbai to understand their business models and provide tailored solutions to support their growth in fast-growing emerging markets. 

A team of smart city experts have issued a stark warning to many Asian countries currently embarking on a mission to make its cities 'smart'. They have warned that many are at risk of creating 'stupid cities' because of its current approach - which is to work in 'isolation' and resist technological innovation.

Gartner has put a damper on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to create 100 smart cities: Gartner estimates that, by 2020, fewer than 10 percent of India's smart city projects will be of a large-scale, city-wide nature.

Modi launched the Smart Cities Mission in June 2015, allocating a total of $US5 billion for the development of 100 smart cities and the rejuvenation of 500 others.

US search engine giant Google has formally announced its plans to launch its innovative free public Wi-Fi initiative in Indonesia following the success of the program in India. Google's Wi-Fi project is entitled Google Station and it has been heralded as a brilliant success in India, since debuting in the region eighteen months ago.

Digital twins make cities a great deal more efficient, safe and smart. With the growing maturity and importance of emerging technologies, integrating digital twins into a smart city’s network could be highly rewarding. It has been widely speculated that digital twins will be the backbone of industries of the future.

The government of India has voiced its plans to develop five new smart cities.

The Indian government has announced that it will develop a national program on AI after acknowledging that the emerging technology has been the potential to reshape and revolutionize the world as we know it. It has also been reported that India is looking to China for inspiration and will attempt to replicate its business model and strategic approach to Artificial Intelligence in order to become a global AI superpower.

India's government is currently examining ways in which it can reduce the growing problem of urban congestion in major cities across the country. The government has formed a federal think-tank, which is chaired by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Prime Minsiter Modi has previously called for reduced car ownership and believes the use of private vehicles as shared taxis could be the ideal solution to India's traffic woes.

India's largest software services company has unveiled a smart city solution aimed at optimizing Belfort's (France) urban bus transportation.

India's government is adopting an aggressive approach towards its efforts to ‘electrify' all cars in the country by 2030. Reports emerging from India - is claiming that a new policy has been drafted by government officials which forces car manufacturers to begin making plans for electrification.

State-owned Indian Railways has announced that it is set to expand its agreement with Indian solar energy company Azure Power to extend the 'electrification' of the country's railways. The government-controlled public transportation firm has agreed a deal with Azure Power to introduce an additional 20 MWs of solar rooftop projects.

The Indian government has formally announced its strategy for the implementation of 5G technology, and has claimed that it could lead global subscriptions of the revolutionary technology along with North America by 2022.

Recommendations compiled by officials in the Indian government reveal the administration's plans to 'electrify' all vehicles in the country by 2032. The government is looking at ways in which it can shape a new mobility policy, and subsequently tasked a study group to submit recommendations and carry out a report into establishing best practices in order to facilitate such a transition.

The Indian government has announced it will introduce free Wi-Fi hotspots to over 1,000 rural villages in the country. Participation in modern society is pretty much impossible without a good internet connection - but unfortunately there are still many parts of the world that are cut off from this, one example of this is in rural India where internet penetration levels remain dismally low.

A prominent executive for Samsung Electronics in India has claimed that locally manufactured devices are critical to fueling the projected explosion of IoT technologies in the country.