Current by GE Partners with Nokia to Unleash Smart City Technology Across Canada

Aug 13, 2018

Nokia is teaming up with Current, powered by GE to bring cutting edge smart city technology to cities across Canada. The two companies have announced a commercial partnership that will help Canadian cities improve operational infrastructure and expand new services to citizens.

Under the terms of the agreement, Nokia will gain access to Current by GE’s CityIQ platform technology across Canada. The system will repurpose outdoor street lighting into digital infrastructure that collects data and distributes insights to cities via Nokia’s communications networks. It builds on Nokia’s expansion of its smart city capabilities, which includes a portfolio of network solutions designed to provide Internet-of-Things (IoT) connectivity to municipal and utility infrastructure.

The combined digital solution is expected to help cities gain new operational insights and will enable app development — using a “horizontal” platform that can support a wide variety of apps simultaneously — that can address common challenges like parking and traffic management, public safety enhancements and weather and air quality monitoring.

“There is tremendous interest in smart city technology throughout Canada, and this partnership will offer Canadian municipalities a scalable method to quickly respond to demographic and economic shifts,” says Shawn Sparling, Head of Canada Enterprise Sales for Nokia. “Responsive, flexible technology is key to creating smarter cities while enabling a safer and more sustainable environment.”
The collaboration complements Infrastructure Canada’s Smart Cities Challenge, which was announced earlier this year to spur development in new smart city initiatives. It encourages community leaders to team up with businesses, academia and civic organizations to design innovative digital solutions that improve residents’ quality of life. It also builds on Nokia’s recent agreement with Smart City Capital to foster smart city projects throughout Canada, by leveraging a $2 billion dedicated project fund and a pre-vetted ecosystem of partners.

Current by GE works with municipalities and utilities to install transformative digital technology that helps accelerate urban growth and development. Because CityIQ is an open and extensible data platform, it allows a wide variety of ecosystem developers to build new apps that positively impact citizens’ lives, both now and in the future. Current’s smart city technology is already being deployed in several U.S. cities, including San Diego, Atlanta and Portland, Oregon.

“We believe in the power of combined innovation,” says Austin Ashe, Current’s General Manager of Intelligent Cities.Ashe. “Our partnership with Nokia will help unlock new forms of smart city transformation and civic engagement that we can’t even imagine yet.”