Innovation in Technology Park has been at the heart of the city since its founding more than 60 years ago. Technology Park was originally developed to bring in established businesses into its mixed-use community, creating the foundation of what would soon be known as the Silicon Orchard.

Over the past few years, the city and Technology Park has been reinvigorated and transformed into one of the United States’ first 5G smart cities powered by real-world connected infrastructure, bringing emerging technologies right into its city streets and leveraging public and private partnerships to create an award-winning innovation hub.

The Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners – a smart city living laboratory – came to life with one goal: to advance next-generation intelligent mobility and smart city technology. This real-world test environment enables early-stage startups, universities, and established companies to facilitate the development and adoption of emerging technologies in real-world conditions that can’t be replicated in a closed environment.

Global Award Recognizes Unique Approach to Technology Integration

Recently, the City of Peachtree Corners was honored with the IEEE Smart Cities 2022 Jury Award. This award recognizes Peachtree Corners and the Curiosity Lab as one of the most unique and advanced smart city environments in the world, and emphasizes how the city’s smart city model serves as a blueprint for other US cities to implement and address the unique challenges found in various communities across the country.

“The City of Peachtree Corners being honored by IEEE with its Jury Award is a reinforcement of our international position as one of the most unique smart city environments in the world. With economic development having been the focus from the beginning, we’ve created a model for better collaboration between public leaders and the top technology developers around the globe to advance the smart city concept in the United States. Our ultimate objective is to improve society and the daily lives and safety of our citizens, and we are proud to be recognized for our smart city efforts while not losing sight of our responsibility toward our citizens.”

– Peachtree Corners City Manager Brian Johnson

The Smart City Blueprint for the U.S.

At the heart of the Silicon Orchard in Technology Park, the community can experience in real-time how the city is integrating technology into its city streets. The following include some of our smart city’s firsts that highlight the importance of public-private partnerships in implementing the latest technologies that improve residents’ everyday lives including:

• Connected Infrastructure: T-Mobile’s 5G network is the cornerstone of the city’s connectivity, enabling companies to test IoT and smart technologies for next-gen use cases.
• IoT Control Room: A first-of-its-kind, dedicated room for monitoring video and analyzing data coming in from the city’s Intelligent traffic cameras and traffic signals, smart streetlights and data sensors. This room allows city managers to make quick decisions around public safety, emergency events and more to allow for the fastest response possible.
• C-V2X Technology: Peachtree Corners is the first city in the United States to have implemented a full C-V2X (cellular vehicle-to-everything) solution via Qualcomm/Jacobs.
• 5G Traffic Signals: These traffic signals are powered by T-Mobile and allow for various C-V2X technologies to be deployed – enabling the first-ever preemption of autonomous vehicles over 5G.
• Smart Street Lights: Peachtree Corners partnered with Juganu to bring smart street lights to the community to help solve the digital divide in various areas of the community. These lights act as 5G repeaters and provide free public wifi.
• Solar Roadway: The first-ever solar road panels were implemented into Peachtree Corners smart city streets to produce solar energy for the city’s solar-powered electric vehicle charging station by The Ray.
• Autonomous Shuttles: Residents and visitors are able to experience Level 4 autonomous mobility via Beep’s autonomous shuttles which uses lidar sensors and C-V2X technology to communicate with both passengers and street lights.
• and so much more.

International Differentiators of the Curiosity Lab Smart City Ecosystem

At Peachtree Corners, we can confidently say there are six differentiators that make our smart city ecosystem unlike any other in the world. These characteristics all together are what contributed to IEEE Smart Cities awarding our ecosystem with international recognition.

• Peachtree Corners smart city provides a live 5G environment.
• The city government owns all infrastructure with little bureaucracy and the ability to make quick approvals and decisions.
• There is no charge for the use of the ecosystem and infrastructure.
• No intellectual property rights are required when companies develop and deploy technologies in our environment.
• The city respects and guarantees security of proprietary data for all companies in the ecosystem.
• The Curiosity Lab ecosystem has the highest level of data security protection for unclassified data via NIST.

Experience the Silicon Orchard Firsthand

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can become part of our smart city here in the Silicon Orchard, want to explore the emerging technologies coming out of Technology Park or are interested in touring the Curiosity Lab, visit https://www.curiositylabptc.com.

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