- POSCO ICT wins contract to design the ICT infrastructure for Al Abdulla Smart City in Kuwait
- The POSCO Group is developing the smart city business, and a TFT has been set up for such purpose

POSCO ICT (CEO Choi Doo-whan) is gathering all resources within the POSCO Group to become the first Korean company to enter the overseas smart city construction market. The smart city concept involves the use of ICT technologies such as IoT, Big Data, and artificial intelligence in buildings, energy, and traffic control to improve convenience for the residents and efficiencies in urban management.

For the first stage of the business, the company is participating in creating the design for the future Al Abdullah New City in Kuwait. Its involvement in this project has allowed the company to secure a base for entering the smart city market of the Middle East. In this design project, the masterplan and the design will be created for the new city to be built in Al Abdullah, an area 30km west of Kuwait City. The new city will be 3 times (around 64.4km2) the size of Bundang in Korea. POSCO ICT will be part of the Korean consortium led by Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) and shall be responsible for designing the ICT infrastructure for the smart city, including the city management center. Costing 4.4 trillion Korean won, the construction of the smart city is scheduled to be completed by June next year. 

POSCO’s smart city business is being pursued by the POSCO Group using the resources of the group’s subsidiary companies. POSCO ICT set up the Smart Solution Council (SSC) with POSCO, POSCO E&C, and POSCO Energy to secure technology and solutions for smart city, smart factory, and smart energy from 2015. The company also formed a separate smart city TFT in order to expedite the development of the business. The activity pursued by the TFT has been selected as one of the Innovation POSCO (IP) projects to be managed at the POSCO Group level. On April 14, POSCO Chairman Kwon Oh-Joon visited POSCO ICT in Pangyo to check on the progress of TFT and to lend support.

POSCO ICT intends to deploy its own smart industry platform called PosFrame in the smart city project to implement the “smartization” of traffic, energy, building, safety, and other urban functions. For example, intelligent sensors installed at critical points on the road will collect traffic data for processing on the smart city platform using big data analytics. Big data analysis will also generate traffic predictions to provide highly optimized traffic information service. On the energy side, there are plans for a micro grid where renewable energy sources like solar panels installed at important locations of the city, such as buildings, generate electricity. These power generation sources will be connected to large-capacity ESS to optimize the production and consumption of energy.

 “Developing a wide range of businesses where ICT technology is put to use in buildings has enabled the company to assume a leading position in the domestic market,” a POSCO ICT representative said. According to him, POSCO ICT plans to use the resources of the POSCO Group for the purpose of developing a full-scale business of commercializing the smart city concept for new cities being built around the world, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.