Integration of the Internet of Things and Blockchain to Promote Collaboration in Smart Cities: A Case Study in China

1. IoT & Smart City

The term IoT was first coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999 with reference to the supply chain management (Ashton, 2009). The concept of IoT revolves around the word ‘‘smartness’’, which means ‘‘an ability to independently obtain and apply knowledge’’ (Ahmed et al., 2016). Therefore, IoT refers to the ‘‘things or devices and sensors’’ that are smart, uniquely addressable based on their communication protocols, and are adaptable and autonomous with inherent security (Bhabad & Bagade, 2015).

With the continuous development of science and technology, IoT technology is appearing more and more in our daily life, and is also receiving more and more attention from all walks of life. Especially in recent years, the IoT has provided great opportunities for the development of various industries (Yu, Liu, Hanes & Mumtaz, 2022), especially in smart city construction (Kim et al., 2017). Smart cities, as well as smart governance, rely on collecting, analysing and processing large amounts of granular real-time data, which can only be achieved with the help of IoT sensors (Cirillo et al., 2020). IoT sensors and cameras can continuously collect detailed data in various forms and in real time, and by using this data, government agencies can make quick decisions on the allocation of different resources and assets (Lee & Lee, 2015).