16 December 2025

5' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Smart cities have been talked about for years, but technological innovation does not only concern urban centres and involves roads, energy networks, critical infrastructures and peripheral areas that are extremely important for competitiveness and people's quality of life. The concept of smart city, in this key of interpretation extended to the territory and not only to the city, thus becomes 'smart land', and more precisely an ecosystem that uses data, algorithms and artificial intelligence models, sensor technology and advanced connectivity systems to improve mobility, security, sustainability and citizen services.
The need for public administrations today is to have tools to "read" and interpret the territory in real time, and consequently plan medium and long-term interventions by defining strategies and making evidence-based decisions. From transport and travel management to forecasting environmental risks, from analysing tourist flows to optimising energy consumption, the use of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things opens up completely new scenarios for intervention. The applications of the 'smart land', in this perspective, are the most diverse and include, for example, planning for sustainable mobility, hydrogeological monitoring and, in general, actions to mitigate risks arising from climate change, service planning for residents and tourists, adaptive lighting, intelligent waste collection and others.
How is this process of further evolution of smart cities to be implemented? The complete digitisation of the networks and facilities that support the day-to-day operation (on a national scale) of authorities and cities is obviously the first step, it being understood that the management of the new generation of critical infrastructures (water, energy, logistics and industry) requires integrated systems that allow remote analysis and intervention. One thing is certain: this digitisation process can no longer be postponed and will have important repercussions for the entire country system, both in economic terms and in terms of efficiency. This is testified by the report 'Smart Infrastructure: Le infrastrutture italiane fra sfide e innovazione' (Smart Infrastructure: Italian infrastructures between challenges and innovation) produced by the TIM Study Centre, in collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, the 5G & Connected Digital Industry and Internet of Things Observatories of the Politecnico di Milano and Comtel Innovation. According to the study, Artificial Intelligence, smart sensors and robotics and drone technologies, supported by high-performance 5G connections and advanced cybersecurity solutions, represent an important driver of development capable of redesigning Italy's energy, water and road networks, and reducing by up to a third the cost of managing and maintaining civil works. For example, intelligent monitoring systems used in civil works and road networks can prevent up to 27 per cent of the collapse of the oldest structures and reduce overall management costs by up to 31 per cent.
Of the technologies that are redefining infrastructure management, the so-called 'digital twins' represent one of the most disruptive innovations for monitoring and predicting critical issues and, above all, rationalising the entire life cycle of physical assets. These are virtual models that faithfully replicate buildings, industrial assets, energy networks or entire sections of territory, constantly updating themselves thanks to data collected by IoT sensors, distributed by 5G networks and processed by GIS systems and artificial intelligence algorithms. The virtue of a digital twin lies in the fact that it is not a simple visualisation but a tool capable of simulating behaviour, testing risk scenarios and optimising maintenance activities, in real time. The fields of application of this technology are vast. In the transport sector, for example, they make it possible to monitor the health of bridges and railways, detecting their structural stress levels and dynamic anomalies. In energy networks, a digital twin makes it possible to analyse flows and consumption in real time, forecasting peaks in demand. In industry, on the other hand, its function can be to replicate plant and machinery to verify production quality, reducing errors and planning predictive interventions. For cities, it becomes, for example, a tool for simulating vehicular traffic congestion or risks related to major weather phenomena and optimising their management, as well as a tool for urban planning and tourism destination management.
The TIM Enterprise solutions and platform for the territory of the future
TIM Enterprise has taken up the challenge of the "Smart Land" and in this sense stands as a point of reference for the digitalisation of infrastructures and processes of companies and Public Administrations, supporting them in the adoption of new digital models through solutions that integrate IoT and 5G technologies and advanced analytics platforms. The underlying objective is to digitalise the entire lifecycle of systems and infrastructures, from their design to their management, by overseeing the supporting elements: vertical competencies that make it possible to customise models and simulations, a network that can guarantee operational continuity and reduced response times, and more generally an approach that does not stop at the digitalisation of assets, but makes them capable of 'speaking' for the benefit of those who manage cities and territories, helping to increase their level of efficiency, resilience and sustainability. In this context, TIM Enterprise and Olivetti, the Group's competence centre for IoT and 5G, provide a portfolio of solutions enabling cities and territories to make the leap towards true data-driven management.One of the most innovative examples is TIM Urban Genius, the 'idata-driven governance' platform already adopted by more than 20 public administrations in Italy that processes and correlates data from the different sources of information a city or territory has, interfacing with pre-existing solutions and new Internet of Things (IoT) systems, offering an integrated view of the territory thanks to the combined use of AI and Big Data.
Among other services offered by TIM Enterprise, TIM City Point makes possible continuous monitoring through cameras and sensors installed on the proprietary network, with dashboards that aggregate and interpret data. These tools are complemented by services such as intelligent video surveillance, which uses the power of 5G networks to analyse flows, visitor clusters and critical issues, and TIM Intelligent Parking, which uses sensors and analysis platforms to detect parking occupancy and optimise mobility. In the infrastructural field, TIM Enterprise also makes available solutions covering the entire supply chain, from sensors to cloud-based management: Smart Metering services enabling remote reading of consumption and the identification of waste and leaks, systems such as Pressure & Leak Management to optimise flows in the water and gas sectors, and solutions for logistics and transport such as TIM Fleet Tracking & Management to monitor fleets and routes in real time. With the aim of developing and proposing increasingly sophisticated and innovative tools, TIM Enterprise also aims to create a collaborative ecosystem with start-ups and cutting-edge companies. This is the objective of the 'TIM Smart Infrastructure Challenge', an initiative that is part of the TIM Group's Open Innovation programme, realised in collaboration with Arduino, Cyber 4.0, eFM, Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, Observatories 5G & Connected Digital Industry and Internet of Things of Politecnico di Milano, SOCOTEC Italia, 28DIGITAL and the support of Alaian, which saw the participation of over 100 startups, scaleups and innovative companies from all over the world. Among these, a number of excellent solutions based on Artificial Intelligence and IoT were identified and offered a technological, commercial or research collaboration in order to accelerate their growth in the market. The 'TIM Smart Infrastructure Challenge' represents another important step on the path to transforming territories into an intelligent, competitive and resilient system: a "smart land" that is sustainable, secure and closer to the needs of citizens.