The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIITH) has set up a Smart City Research Center (SCRC) with support from MEITY (Government of India), Smart City Mission and Government of Telangana.

There is a huge push for smart cities in India under the Smart Cities Mission, a new initiative by the Government of India to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local development and harnessing technology to create smart outcomes for citizens. In this ambitious project, 100 cities are being covered for the duration of 5 years with a budget of Rs.100 crore per city per year. As a part of it, Living Lab plans to create an urban area enhancing three value domains: social, economic, and environmental.

IIITH existing centres will be lending their expertise to the Smart City Research Centre in various domains covering signal processing, OneM2M server, design of smart and automated buildings, optics and photonics, flexible electronics, embedded systems and IoT, radio frequency integrated circuit design and low-power VLSI design, research and development in fundamental aspects of computing systems etc.

"IIITH's Living Lab will collaborate with government bodies, start-ups and big organisations on Smart City solutions. The IIITH campus would include different IoT verticals related to air quality, building energy, water quantity and quality, street lighting, etc. Through the Living Lab, IIIT-H plans to transform the campus into a platform for learning, experimentation and for showcasing new ideas and approaches. "As technology goes mainstream and directly into homes, buildings, campuses and cities, it is imperative that access to such spaces should be available to ensure that the right products are defined, designed and built. Without live access to such spaces, solutions or products may end up being theoretical and not actually usable," explains Professor Ramesh Loganathan.