近日，世界最大的股票市場之一、美國著名的電子證券交易機構 Nasdaq 旗下財經媒體邀請 PlatON 雲圖首席戰略官肖紫聞，就「智慧城市與區塊鏈」的主題發表署名文章。肖紫聞表示，智慧城市已經真實地存在於我們的生活當中，然而基礎設施的完善仍然有發展的空間。區塊鏈技術在更好地保護數據安全，防止潛在攻擊方面有着非常深遠的意義和潛力。

原文標題：《世界最大的股票市場之一 Nasdaq 署名文章：< 新挑戰，新解決方案——智慧城市的興起 >》
作者：PlatON 首席戰略官 Ada Xiao ，英國劍橋大學三一學院經濟學學士，美國哥倫比亞大學商學院工商管理碩士。Ada 是萬向區塊鏈實驗室早期成員之一，也是當時的市場拓展負責人。她還曾就職於分佈式資本，負責亞太地區區塊鏈技術的投資與合作。此外，Ada 深諳全球資本市場和資產管理業務，曾任職於香港著名投資銀行與金融機構，包括高盛集團和瑞銀全球資產管理公司。

PlatON 首席戰略官 Ada Xiao：《新挑戰，新解決方案——智慧城市的興起》Ada Xiao PlatON 首席戰略官

世界正在發生改變，我們所生活的城市也在不斷變化。隨着全球大都市數量不斷增加，爆發性的全球都市化趨勢愈加明顯。從 1950 年到 2018 年，全球的城鎮人口從 7.51 億上升到 42 億，面對仍在不斷增加的數字，全球政府所面臨的問題早已從城市化變成了環境可持續性。

這些問題促使城市規劃者探索新的模式和科技來解決問題，因而新一代智慧城市興起了。智慧城市強化了城市中心的性能、宜居性和性價比。

明日之城，當下科技

藉助物聯網設備和應用，智慧城市提供自動化和有效的公共服務，其網絡互聯設備將會覆蓋到從交通指示燈到能源網等各個角落，可以用來進行自動駕駛系統訓練、記錄和監控電動汽車電池的使用情況到生態治理等方方面面。

目前，我們的家庭已經應用了一系列的網絡互聯技術，其中有 36% 覆蓋了物聯網應用，例如亞馬遜的 Alexa，一種智能恆溫器或智能電視。

智能設備在我們生活中的普及纔剛剛開始。Garter 估計，在 2020 年，典型的智慧城市將有大約 97 億物聯網設備使得從醫療保健到廢物處理等的各個環節都會充分利用有效的數據追蹤爲城市居民提供無縫的自動化服務。

分佈式賬本技術，如區塊鏈，同時也會用來處理和優化由我們的智能設備產生和接收到的數據，促進兩者間的數據交易。

想象一下，假如公園裏的一個基於物聯網的垃圾桶在垃圾滿的時候向公園的管理部門發出一個相關的通知，就會有清潔工來清空垃圾桶。接着垃圾桶再自動向公園管理部門發出已清空的通知，廢物管理公司將立即收到相應的服務費。

分佈式賬本技術允許交易日誌在多個參與方中共享，包括公園的管理部門，廢物管理部門和國家公共廢物處理委員會。區塊鏈在這當中充當一系列公共服務的數據庫，促進城市有效地調配服務。

智慧城市：運營高效，高效節能

從推進可靠公共交通系統到創建可持續能源市場，智慧城市更加高效。我們很快可以看到無人駕駛公交在交通擁堵的時候將會接收到交通傳感器的指示，然後自動切換路線避免在到達下一個充電站前在擁堵中浪費乘客的時間，還會根據實時的能耗獲得高速運輸管理的賬單。

目前已經有很多城市推崇智慧城市項目並採用分佈式賬本技術來解決執行效率低下的問題。例如，印度於 2015 年推出了「智慧城市使命」項目，計劃在全印度建立 100 座智慧城市。政府表明，許多印度城市的落地需要依靠區塊鏈技術來推動。

愛沙尼亞在 2012 年應用分佈式賬本技術處理身份管理和稅收方面的問題，給很多政府部門提供 7*24 小時的在線服務。政府引導創新由此帶來良好的國家效率和宜居性，並推動了創新初創企業的爆發，貢獻了近 10% 的國家 GDP。

除了惠利於當地經濟之外，智慧城市還可以創建能量「交易所」讓城市家庭可以彼此之間進行電力的交易，這樣不僅可以降低能量存儲需求，通過將能量導向真正需要的家庭，還可以助力可再生能源的普及。例如太陽能板，有餘能的家庭可以成爲其他家庭的能源生產者。

中國最大的汽車業巨頭萬向控股有限公司投資了 290 億美元開發智慧城市，以區塊鏈技術作爲技術支撐。從萬向在能源高效應用和電動汽車的發展上來看，這個項目將會力求保證未來城市的核心即爲可持續性。

保障智慧城市：互聯世界的數據保護

不斷增加的關聯性和危機之下，安全成了 47% 的物聯網開發者最關心的事。關於安全的擔憂並非毫無道理。2018 年，研究發現，現有的智慧城市系統有 17 個漏洞，黑客能從引發洪水報警和改變交通指示燈的形式對生活在智慧城市中的人們造成毀滅性的打擊。

智慧城市已經真實地存在於我們的生活當中，然而基礎設施的完善仍然有發展的空間。毫無疑問，我們的生活未來一定會更加互聯，基礎設施需要更多改善來保證每個居民的個人隱私和安全。

區塊鏈技術在更好的保護數據安全，防止潛在攻擊方面有着非常深遠的意義和潛力，將數字貨幣和分佈式架構應用進來可以加強那些內在安全的系統，如此便不會有內部的數據泄漏、無需羣衆監督，減少潛在黑客的入侵點。

隱私保護計算和安全多方計算的應用可以使參與計算的多方應用計算數據而不用擔心數據泄漏，也無需依靠第三方來處理存儲在系統中的大量價值。由於數據驅動技術，我們所生活的世界變得更加高效，個人隱私應該得到更強力的保護。

智慧城市必然會成爲未來的城市中心，爲成百上千萬的人、服務和商業提供支持。此外，智慧城市還預示着數據隱私和網絡安全日益顯著的重要性。在越來越高度互聯的世界，智慧城市相較於以往的大都市能提供更加高效、環境可持續和高性價比的樞紐。

然而，適當的基礎設施必須不斷髮展來保護個人的安全和隱私，這使得日益成熟的技術能提高我們的生活質量，而不會讓我們比過去經濟更落後。

以下爲英文原文：

The world is changing, as are the cities we inhabit. As the number of global megacities continues to rise, the international trend of explosive urbanization is increasingly difficult to ignore. With the world’s urban population growing from 751 million in 1950 to 4.2 billion in 2018 and continuing to rise, governments face mounting problems as a result, from urban efficiency to environmental sustainability.

These issues have forced urban planners to explore new models and technologies to yield new solutions – giving rise to a new generation of smart cities which enhance the performance, liveability, and cost-effectiveness of urban centers.

Tomorrow’s Cities, Today’s Technology

Smart cities will rely upon internet of things (IoT)-connected devices and appliances to provide automated and efficient public services. This web of interconnected devices will include everything from traffic lights to energy grids and could be used to do anything from train auto-driving systems to recording and monitoring electric vehicle batteries to manage ecological waste.

Already, our homes constitute a web of interconnected technologies, with more than 36% containing an IoT-connected appliance, such as Amazon’s_Alexa_, a smart thermostat, or smart television.

The proliferation of smart devices in our lives has only just begun, with Gartner estimating that by 2020 almost 9.7 billion IoT devices will make up the typical smart city – and that everything from healthcare to waste management will make use of efficient data tracking, providing seamless automated services for urban inhabitants.

Distributed ledger technologies (DLT), such as blockchain, meanwhile, have the potential to handle and optimize the wealth of data that our smart devices produce and receive, facilitating transactions between them.

Imagine, for example, an IoT-enabled trash can in a public park. The trash can sends a notification to the parks department once it is almost full and a garbageman is dispatched to empty it. The trash can sends another automated notification to the parks department once it is empty and the waste management company receives instant payment for its service.

DLT would allow this log of transactions to be shared between multiple parties: the parks department, the waste management company, and national boards in charge of processing public waste. The same blockchain could serve as a database for a range of public services, from healthcare to streetlamps, helping the city to coordinate services efficiently.

Smart Cities: Operationally Efficient, Energy Efficient

From facilitating reliable public transport systems to creating sustainable energy markets – smart cities will be more efficient than anything which has gone before them. We could soon see autonomous buses being informed by traffic sensors of traffic jams as they occur, automatically perting their route to avoid delays for commuters before directing themselves to an available charging point, billing the transit authority in real time for their energy consumption.

Numerous countries are already pursuing smart city projects and adopting DLT to cut down on administrative inefficiencies. India, for example, launched its Smart Cities Mission in 2015, in the hope of developing 100 smart cities across the country. The government has stated that many smart city initiatives will be underpinned by blockchain technology.

Estonia, meanwhile, has used DLT since 2012 to tackle issues such as ID management and taxation – and offers the majority of government services online, 24/7. Government-led innovation has resulted in greater national efficiency and liveability, and the explosion of a vibrant startup sector accounting for almost 10% of the country’s GDP.

In addition to benefiting local economies, smart cities may also enable the creation of energy “exchanges\’\’ where houses trade electricity between themselves. Such a system would not only reduce the need for energy storage, with electricity being redirected locally to where it’s needed, but could also contribute to the popularity of renewable energy sources, such as solar panels, as homes would benefit directly from becoming producers of surplus energy.

In China, the country’s biggest automotive component manufacturer, Wanxiang, has pledged to invest $29 billion over the course of the next decade to support the development of Innova Smart City – using blockchain technology to form its technological backbone. Mirroring Wanxiang’s development of energy efficient applications and electric automobiles, the project will seek to ensure that sustainability lies at the heart of the cities of tomorrow.

Securing Smart Cities: Data Protection in an Interconnected World

As a result of the dangers associated with our increasing connectedness, 47% of IoT developers cite security as their primary concern. These concerns are not unreasonable. In 2018, researchers found 17 vulnerabilities within existing smart city systems which could have enabled hackers to wreak havoc on entire populations by setting off flood warning systems and changing traffic signals.

While smart cities are already a reality, the infrastructure necessary to support them still has some way to go: more needs to be done to ensure the privacy and security for every citizen, as we become invariably more interconnected.

Blockchain technology has profound potential to better secure data from potential attacks, while applied cryptography and distributed architectures can underpin systems which are inherently secure, without the risk of insider data leaks, mass surveillance, and fewer points of entry for would-be-hackers.

The implementation of privacy preserving computation (PPC) and Multi-Party Computation (MPC), meanwhile, would allow multiple parties to utilize data without revealing the input data itself or trusting a third party to handle the wealth of information stored within the system. While the world in which we live becomes more efficient as a result of data-driven technologies – inpidual privacy remains uncompromised.