There is a huge push for smart cities in India under the Smart Cities Mission, which is 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 budget of Rs.100 crore per city per year. As shown in the figure, the mission focuses on 24 main elements on transformation.

Leveraging the core and domain strengths, IIIT-H had established a Center of Excellence on IoT for Smart Cities in Jan 2019 with support from India-EU project. IIIT-H together with EBTC and with possible support from other knowledge partners like LAAS-CNRS as well as Bordeaux Metropole proposed to take this living lab initiative to the next level with support from Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) and the State Government of Telangana, who have already shown interest. The IIIT (International Institute of Information Technology) Campus in Hyderabad will apply their smart city approach to make a Living Lab in the campus to create an urban area enhancing three value domains: social, economic and environmental. This will lead to a Livable and renewable area that will be a new urban centre in Hyderabad.