People talk a lot about smart cities and connectivity, but what does that actually mean in practice?
Urban connectivity translates above all into tangible services for the city and its residents; it eases mobility, strengthens safety, and makes it possible to transmit data collected by sensors remotely without multiplying trips to the field. Yet these use cases reflect a deeper transformation.
"We're at a point in time where data is being generated on a massive scale and where artificial intelligence is being used more and more; connectivity is central to all of that, whether it's for developing tomorrow's applications or for giving access to computing resources," summarizes Sébastien Faye. It is becoming the foundation that allows this data to be transferred and enables new digital services to run as close as possible to users — to the point of becoming an increasingly strategic component of infrastructure.
This growing importance comes at a cost. The more traffic increases, the more networks' electricity consumption climbs: mobile data volumes could increase fivefold by 2030. The challenge is therefore no longer simply to boost capacity, but to stabilize — or even reduce — consumption while absorbing more traffic. "On top of that there's a sovereignty dimension: connectivity is now one of the pillars of European strategy," notes Steve Boukhers, a communications specialist responsible for promoting LIST's connectivity projects.
Does that mean starting from scratch? Both experts favor a gradual approach. "It's not a permanent revolution, but a continuous evolution: infrastructure grows along with needs," observes Christophe Van Yck. Among the challenges ahead, it will be essential to keep strengthening network capacity and resilience in order to maintain consistent quality of service, all while keeping energy consumption under control as usage keeps growing.
Luxembourg, a laboratory for tomorrow's connectivity
This is where Luxembourg has a distinctive advantage: its small size, its density of projects and its cross-border areas make it an ideal testing ground. "Luxembourg clearly has a strategic advantage: it's an excellent place to test and experiment before rolling things out," Sébastien Faye points out. The country was, in fact, among the first in Europe to launch 5G. Working with real-world data changes everything: it allows hypotheses to be confirmed under real conditions rather than remaining theoretical.
A smart tower at the heart of the city
The SmartSpires project takes the form of smart towers, the first experimental unit of which has been installed in Belvaux. The idea is to bring together, in a single location, 5G connectivity, sensors, cameras, an information screen and, above all, computing capacity — what's known as edge computing. Rather than sending data to data centers hundreds of kilometers away, intelligence is relocated as close as possible to where it's used. "The idea is to integrate everything in one place, as close as possible to end users," summarizes Christophe Van Yck. In other words, putting digital infrastructure at the service of a city by acting locally.
Many use cases have been envisioned: flagging an accident or a fallen cyclist and alerting emergency services, spotting a full trash bin to avoid an unnecessary collection round, or detecting an incident in a public square. Depending on the use case, a screen can broadcast information to people nearby. The tower is designed to be modular; the cameras are optional, and other features, such as audio broadcasting, could be added later. New applications thus become possible, benefiting both citizens and public services.
Designed to address the digital connectivity gap in European cities, SmartSpires is backed by a consortium in which GCore is the lead coordinator, LIST handles technical coordination, and Orange Luxembourg provides the 5G network. The project benefits from €3.1 million in European co-financing over three years. Its ambitions also extend beyond local application. "The goal is to turn Belval, and Luxembourg more broadly, into a living laboratory and a reproducible model for other cities, where researchers, public authorities and businesses co-build solutions that are scalable, secure and sustainable," says Sébastien Faye. Both interviewees stress one point: at this stage, Belvaux remains a controlled site — a test phase intended to de-risk the technology before any larger-scale, public rollout. Designed from the outset to respect privacy, the infrastructure processes data locally to limit its circulation and complies with European requirements on data protection and artificial intelligence. This approach is naturally accompanied by an educational phase, with the project drawing on exchanges with interested municipalities.
Artificial intelligence in the service of energy efficiency
The RAISE project — Radio Access Intelligence for Saving Energy — aims to cut the energy consumption of the radio access network by at least ten percent, without affecting users. This network of antennas and transmitters, which runs continuously, accounts on its own for more than three-quarters of an operator's energy consumption. The whole challenge lies in teaching the network to consume energy according to the time and actual need. "The idea is to adapt the network to actual needs and not consume energy when it isn't necessary," explains Christophe Van Yck.
In Luxembourg, weekday traffic peaks driven by cross-border commuters, combined with markedly quieter weekends, create a usage pattern unlike anywhere else in Europe — ideal for training precise models. Rather than intervening directly on the live network, the teams first rely on a digital twin: a virtual replica fed by real, anonymized data from Orange's network. On this replica, energy-saving measures — such as switching certain antennas to low-power mode during off-peak hours — can be tested without risk before being applied in the real world.
Running until 2029, the project aims to reduce energy costs, cut carbon emissions, and turn Luxembourg's mobile network into a model of digital efficiency in Europe.
Artificial intelligence, used under control
Who says more autonomous networks says a growing role for artificial intelligence. How far can automation go without losing human oversight? The answer is clear: the tool serves as a decision-support aid, not an autopilot. "Today, we don't let artificial intelligence act on its own: there is always systematic human oversight behind it," Christophe Van Yck emphasizes. The European regulatory framework imposes safeguards, meaning that ultimate control is never handed over to the machine.
Looking ahead, with the rollout of 6G and the proliferation of connected devices, networks will become more efficient: for an equivalent volume of data, each new generation consumes less than the previous one, antennas are shrinking, and software is taking precedence over hardware. At the global scale, the sheer growth in the number of connected devices tends to push total energy consumption upward, which makes the overall environmental impact difficult to assess. At the scale of an individual device or network, however, there remains significant room for optimization.
What ties the two projects together is complementarity. Orange brings connectivity and network operations expertise, while LIST contributes its know-how in edge computing, artificial intelligence and use-case design. "We bring connectivity, LIST brings its expertise in edge computing and artificial intelligence: we complement each other," concludes Christophe Van Yck — a concrete glimpse of what digital technologies can offer for the smart city of tomorrow.