Chile needs major smart city investment

Chile needs to invest US$30 billion in telecom infrastructure over the next ten years to boost its potential to develop smart cities, according to Pelayo Covarrubias, board president of digital development organisation País Digital.

During a seminar on smart cities, Covarrubias said Chile had invested US$15 billion in telecom infrastructure in the last decade. The estimated investment for the next decade is the minimum Chile would need to spend just to be able to keep up with other high-ranking digital cities worldwide, he added.

According to Covarrubias, investment per capita, per year in telecom infrastructure is currently around US$125. That has to increase to US$225.

Getting the infrastructure in place is the country's first priority. Then it would be in a position to introduce new digital services that fit with the new trends in technology, namely, cloud computing, M2M, big data and the Internet of Things (IoT).

The third step is to develop concrete projects such as in the area of health care, where a patient's health record could be accessible on a smartphone to show at a doctor's appointment.

According to Covarrubias, 60 per cent of Chilean internet users have internet only in their homes and do not have mobile internet. In order to implement many projects required for a smart city, almost 100 per cent mobile broadband access would be needed.

In July, Latin American energy holding company Enersis unveiled a project, Smartcity Santiago, to study the role technology could play in urban development in Chile, which involves an investment of US$10 million.

In the same month, ICT association ACTI's president Carlos Busso said that in the next two years, Chile needs to double its 6,000 systems engineers and ICT technicians graduating yearly from universities in order to become a competitive ICT force in Latin America.

Meanwhile, Chile's public works ministry plans to launch a tender to build a cable car system in the capital, Santiago, in the second half of 2015.

Construction of the US$76 million project is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2016 and last two years. The 3.4 kilometre cable car system will connect Ciudad Empresarial in northern Santiago with the Tobalaba metro station located in the Sanhattan financial centre. The project will include three stations and 146 cable cars, each with capacity of ten people. It is expected to transport 3,000 passengers per hour.

The tender has been delayed several times. The initiative has recently gained momentum as the government aims to speed up infrastructure projects to boost a weakening economy.