Smart City:
Meaning and Market Shift
A Smart City is more than sensors and data — it is a living ecosystem designed to make urban life safer, more efficient, and sustainable. As cities expand and electrification accelerates, critical infrastructure like EV charging stations becomes the backbone of urban mobility. But with this new infrastructure comes new challenges: fire risks, system abnormalities, and the need for constant monitoring.
Traditional monitoring systems have relied heavily on cloud servers. But this model is fragile: network disruptions can blind the system, latency can delay response, and private data is sent far from its source.
Edge AI changes this equation. By processing data directly at the site, Smart City systems become instant, reliable, and privacy-preserving.
At DEEPX, we provide the semiconductor intelligence that allows this to happen — powering the vision of cities that are not only connected, but truly intelligent.
The DEEPX Advantage: Making Cities Safer, Smarter
Smart City applications demand:
- Zero-latency decision-making for emergencies like fire or electrical failure.
- 24/7 reliability, even without cloud connectivity.
- Privacy protection, ensuring sensitive data never leaves the local device.
- Energy efficiency, enabling systems to run continuously at scale.
DEEPX enables this with:
- DX-M1 NPUs delivering high AI performance under 5W power.
- On-device intelligence, ensuring immediate response without cloud dependency.
- Secure, low-maintenance hardware that fits directly into city infrastructure.
Building Safe and Intelligent EV Charging Stations
LG U+, a leading Korean telecommunication company, is at the forefront of Smart City innovation. In partnership with DEEPX, they are building a smart monitoring system for their EV charging infrastructure, beginning with the Volt-up project.
The Challenge
EV charging stations present unique safety risks:
- Potential fire hazards from high-voltage equipment.
- Abnormal usage or system faults that could cause failures or accidents.
- The need for constant monitoring without compromising user privacy.
Traditional cloud-based monitoring solutions cannot guarantee the speed, reliability, or privacy needed for such critical infrastructure.
The Solution
LG U+ is developing advanced AI models for fire detection and abnormality detection, ensuring charging stations remain safe at all times.
DEEPX provides the hardware backbone:
- DX-M1 NPUs integrated directly into the monitoring system.
- Real-time inference of safety models on-device, without reliance on cloud connectivity.
- 24/7 operation, with ultra-low power consumption and no latency.
Results & Impact
- Zero-latency alerts: Fires or faults are detected instantly, enabling immediate response.
- Stronger privacy: Sensitive video data never leaves the station — only local metadata is processed.
- Operational reliability: The system works continuously, even in areas with poor or interrupted connectivity.
- Scalable model: Deployable across thousands of EV stations nationwide.
Conclusion: Safer Cities with On-device AI
- The collaboration between DEEPX and LG U+ demonstrates how Smart City infrastructure can be protected and empowered by AI at the edge. With EV charging stations as the foundation of electrified mobility, ensuring their safety is a civic responsibility.
- By combining LG U+’s connectivity and AI model expertise with DEEPX’s low-power, high-performance NPUs, we are creating urban systems that protect citizens, preserve privacy, and operate without interruption.
- This is the future of Smart Cities — intelligent, secure, and sustainable.
On this page
Subscribe to our latest posts!
Get in touch with DEEPX to elevate your AI-driven efficiency today
Related Products
Validated & Deployed or From Prototype to Production:
Showcasing solutions that combine technical reliability with commercial success in real-world deployment.
AAEON
UP SQUARED 7100 EDGE
DX-M1®
HW Platform
DX-AIBOX-M1-N97
DX-M1®
HW Platform
Open Platform
Sixfab ALPON X5 AI
DX-M1®
HW Platform
Open Platform