Today, during Smart City Expo and World Congress in Barcelona, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Veolia announced a new partnership and new solutions that integrate intuitive and powerful digital technologies into urban services to improve the efficiency of municipal systems around the world -- a partnership which opens up new possibilities for smart cities.
A world leader in municipal services, Veolia turned to IBM to transform the way they deliver digital services and solutions for urban resources for cities. The partnership with IBM puts Veolia at the forefront of municipal service providers by offering the industry's most data-driven approach to municipal services management. Veolia will both use the new set of digital services to improve performance with current clients, and also offer new turnkey ready-to-use digital solutions to other cities.
IBM and Veolia will first deliver new solutions for Smarter Water, incorporating the IBM Intelligent Water software which allows for better utilization of Big Data, and provides a management system for the integration, optimization and analysis of all data related to water management.
The new solutions for water are currently under development in Lyon, France, and Tidworth, England, where Veolia is providing water and waste water management services to citizens using some of the most advanced and automated water management technology available today. By integrating data across municipal water management systems and applying advanced analytics to spot trends, patterns, make predictions and provide a systems-level view of operations, Veolia will contribute to more efficient water management, improved reduction of waste, better cost controls for its clients as well as improved accountability to city leaders.
Designed to help cities operate more efficiently, provide better service to citizens and ensure effective management of resources, these innovative solutions enable them to address some of their most pressing needs and make cities better places to live for their residents.
"Cities generate enormous amounts of data that must be constantly managed," said Antoine Frerot, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Veolia. "As one of the world's leading operators of urban infrastructure, Veolia supplies millions of people with water, energy and waste management services every day. By combining our deep expertise with IBM's data-driven insight, Veolia is creating a paradigm shift in urban management which in turn will help cities improve efficiency and deliver better services to citizens."
Also as part of the partnership, Veolia and IBM will also introduce new digital solutions and services for energy management and waste management, areas in which Veolia has deep operations experience and IBM has proven technology.
"By combining Veolia's expertise in utilities management with IBM's data-driven approach to Smarter Cities, the two companies are bringing together some of the most advanced solutions in the market and making them readily available to cities," said Michael Dixon, General Manager, IBM Smarter Cities. "This provides cities of any size with unprecedented options for improving efficiency".
The digital water solution is immediately available from Veolia. The solutions for energy and waste water are expected to be available in 2015.
