Macau has spent the past decade developing its smart city initiatives to enhance urban services, sustainability, and digital infrastructure. Yet, without international certification or recognition, the true impact remains unclear, and experts caution that progress has yet to translate into measurable results.
A city can proclaim itself a ‘smart city’, but the truth is that until it is recognised as such by its peers or accrediting bodies, it may be little more than marketing.
Conversely, a city can improve many of its sustainability indicators, thereby offering better living conditions to its inhabitants, yet it makes little sense to call it a ‘smart city’ if this is done solely by those responsible.
The innovation system developed through Macau’s smart city initiatives “is ambitious, complex, but still seeking complementarity”
The Macau Government first raised the idea of building a “smart city” in the 2016 Policy Address [“to initiate studies on a plan for the development of the new era of big data for Macau to become a smart city,” noted Chui Sai On].
A decade has since passed — ample time for an initial assessment.
At Mobile World Congress this year, we spoke with Mr. Hudson Lou, Director of Network and Services Development of Macau CTM, to discuss Macau’s digitalization journey and the potential of 5.5G
Macau occupies a relatively unique position within the global telecoms market, being one of the few cities in the world to have full coverage of both fiber and 5G. Combining this with the city’s high rate of technology adoption, it is easy to see why Macau has quickly become a hotbed of advanced 5G use cases and is well on its way to becoming a truly smart city.
Macau is transforming into a smart city. CTM, its main telecom provider, is steering the city through the changes by introducing advanced connectivity services that extend from the home to the office to large public venues.
The carrier already provides 100% Wi-Fi and 5G coverage across the city and is working to make Macau the world’s first dual 10 Gbps city. In May, CTM launched a 10 Gbps neighborhood with Wi-Fi 7 in public areas, said Hudson Lou, Head of Network and Services Development at CTM. In October, CTM launched a dual 10-gigabit stadium.
The pandemic made mobile payments commonplace, but the Government was able to understand the trends and intervened decisively
It is true that Macau had been adopting mobile payments for at least three years before the pandemic hit, but everyone in the city knows how it was before and how it is now.