Inside Japan’s smart city of the future

A futuristic smart city called Woven City is being built at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan. Labelled a ‘living laboratory’ for new technologies it is being developed by Toyota subsidiary, Woven Planet, and will be the world’s first programmable city.

As well as being a testing ground for smart solutions it will also become home to 2000 residents who will get the chance to live somewhere that is being designed to allow humans and nature to live their best lives.

“Our approach is driven by three unwavering principles: Human-Centered respect and prioritisation of people’s needs and preferences; Living Laboratory which enables seamless real-world testing of new technologies; and an Ever-Evolving approach by which such new technologies and services continuously grow and improve,” the Woven City website says.

This city in Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture, is being built from the ground up and will feature innovations including robots that are tasked with making life better for humans, AI sensor technologies that can monitor the health of residents, and self-driving automated vehicles for delivering goods – to name just a few. Pedestrians, cyclists, and automated cars will also each have their own roads.

When it comes to energy, hydrogen fuel cells and solar energy will be the main power sources and earlier this year Toyota and ENEOS signed a joint agreement to ‘explore CO2-free hydrogen production and usage at Woven City’.

Well-being through food

Personalised eating will be another important element and a deal agreed in April between Woven Planet and Nissin Foods will see the pair work to ‘jointly foster human well-being through healthy eating’. The vision here is to capitalise on the ‘correlation between food and the extension of healthy life expectancy’.

“We strongly share Toyota’s vision of ‘well-being for all’ and are very pleased to be a part of Woven City,” said Noritaka Ando, Chief Operating Officer of Nissin Foods. “This initiative is the first step toward realising a ‘new diet’ that allows people to enjoy a ‘Complete Nutrition Meal’ optimised for each individual anytime, anywhere.”

Collaborating partners wanted

Innovators are in high demand at Woven City and the developers are keen to hear from potential partners in a range of field, including education, agriculture, energy, and mobility.

“We are developing a wide range of solutions and are aware that the right partners and relationships are critical to our success,” the project team says. “If you share our vision and are interested in working together, please reach out to us. We’d love to collaborate with you.”

Find out more about the opportunities to collaborate.