Big data in smart cities

In this paper, we discuss the concept of the smart city, summarize its development, analyze the motivation and goals of building smart cities in China, and illustrate the supporting technologies of the smart city. Next, we propose a smart city infrastructure that is based on the concept of the digital city and integrates the Internet of Things and cloud computing technologies, thereby achieving automatic control and intelligence services for people and logistics in physical cities. We analyze the big data of smart cities according to ubiquitous sensor networks. Facing the problems and challenges caused by big data of smart cities, we propose a strategy to handle big data that focuses on cloud computing and data mining. In addition, we present a basic framework for cloud computing platforms and propose the establishment of an operating center for smart cities. In closing, we discuss the bright prospects of smart cities.