AI and Seamless IoT Set to Revolutionize Global Smart Lighting

TAIPEI, Taiwan – March 17, 2026 – The dream of the truly 'smart city' has long been hampered by a formidable, unseen barrier: the immense complexity of deploying and managing thousands of connected devices across different regions and carrier networks. Now, a strategic collaboration is poised to shatter that obstacle, starting with the humble streetlight. At the Smart City Summit & Expo, IoT firm 1NCE and intelligent lighting leader LEOTEK, backed by SoftBank Corp. in the Asia-Pacific region, have unveiled a partnership designed to accelerate the global deployment of AI-powered smart lighting infrastructure by making connectivity simple, seamless, and instant.

The 'Zero-Touch' Revolution in Urban Infrastructure

For decades, municipalities and urban planners have faced a daunting challenge when scaling up IoT projects. Each new device, from a sensor to a smart luminaire, traditionally required painstaking integration with local cellular networks. This process often involved negotiating multiple contracts with different carriers, managing various SIM cards, and navigating complex roaming agreements—a logistical nightmare that stifles innovation and slows progress. The partnership between 1NCE and LEOTEK directly confronts this problem with a model they call 'zero-touch global deployment.'

By integrating 1NCE's global connectivity platform, LEOTEK can now manufacture and ship its LEOLink Intelligent Lighting System (ILS) anywhere in the world, ready to connect to a network the moment it is installed. The platform provides access to cellular IoT connectivity across more than 170 countries and regions under a single, unified architecture. This eliminates the need for on-site configuration, local carrier contracts, or roaming negotiations. For a city in Europe or a utility in South America, the process becomes as simple as installing the physical light; the connection is automatic and globally managed.

“Smart infrastructure projects benefit when connectivity is simple to deploy and straightforward to operate,” said Hitoshi Ono, Senior Vice President of 1NCE. “By supporting LEOTEK’s connected lighting deployments with global cellular IoT connectivity, we help enable efficient rollout and scalable operations - so cities can focus on outcomes like improved maintenance planning and better asset visibility.” This shift from managing connectivity to leveraging data represents a fundamental change in how smart city projects can be implemented, dramatically lowering the barrier to entry and accelerating the pace of urban modernization.

From Dumb Lamps to Intelligent Digital Grids

The technology at the heart of this transformation is far more than a simple lightbulb with a SIM card. LEOTEK's LEOLink ILS is designed to turn passive street lighting into an active, intelligent digital grid. Each luminaire becomes a smart node capable of collecting, analyzing, and communicating critical data. This is powered by RenAI™, LEOTEK's native AI central management system, which serves as the brain of the entire network.

RenAI™ leverages data from a suite of sensors embedded within each lighting fixture, which can monitor energy consumption with high accuracy, detect tilt events from impacts or weather, track asset location via GPS, and measure ambient light levels. The AI platform analyzes this constant stream of information to enable a host of advanced capabilities. Predictive maintenance algorithms can identify a failing luminaire and automatically generate a work order before it goes dark, optimizing maintenance crew schedules and enhancing public safety. AI-driven adaptive lighting can dim or brighten entire sections of a city based on real-time conditions like traffic patterns or weather, significantly reducing energy consumption and CO₂ emissions while maintaining safety standards.

This intelligent system provides city operators with a holistic, real-time view of their entire lighting infrastructure through a secure, cloud-based dashboard. It allows for remote control and monitoring, eliminating the need for costly and inefficient manual inspections. “By combining our intelligent lighting capabilities with global IoT connectivity, we aim to help municipalities modernize street lighting with better operational transparency and long-term efficiency,” stated Torrent Chin, President and Chief Sustainability Officer of LEOTEK. The result is a system that not only illuminates streets but also provides actionable intelligence to create safer, greener, and more efficient urban environments.

A Strategic Synergy Reshaping the Market

The collaboration between 1NCE and LEOTEK is more than a technical integration; it's a strategic synergy that could reshape the competitive landscape for smart city infrastructure. The smart lighting market is populated by established giants like Signify and GE Current, while the IoT connectivity space is dominated by major telecommunications providers. This partnership creates a uniquely powerful offering that challenges the status quo on both fronts.

For LEOTEK, the ability to offer 'deployment-ready' global products provides a significant competitive advantage. It transforms the sales conversation from a complex, multi-stakeholder discussion about technology and telecommunications to a simple, value-based proposition focused on outcomes like energy savings and improved public safety. For 1NCE, the partnership serves as a high-profile validation of its platform in the critical public infrastructure sector, showcasing its ability to handle large-scale, mission-critical deployments and setting a new industry standard for hassle-free IoT.

Further amplifying the partnership's reach is the role of SoftBank Corp., 1NCE's exclusive sales partner for the Asia-Pacific region. SoftBank's deep market penetration and influence in APAC provide a powerful channel to accelerate adoption in one of the world's fastest-growing smart city markets. This three-way collaboration creates a potent go-to-market strategy that combines LEOTEK's advanced hardware and AI, 1NCE's revolutionary connectivity model, and SoftBank's regional sales power.

Illuminating Cities from Boston to South America

This integrated model is not just theoretical; it is already being proven in diverse environments across the globe. In American cities like Boston, Syracuse, and Fort Wayne, the technology has been used to upgrade traditional lamps into smart nodes, providing city managers with unprecedented remote monitoring and control. The solution has also been adopted by the DTE Energy project in Michigan for its large-scale infrastructure modernization efforts and has been expanded to initiatives in San Francisco.

The true power of the global connectivity component is demonstrated in the solution's expansion across international borders. Deployments are now active in metropolitan areas across Mexico and South America, where the ability to manage a single, unified network across different countries and regions is a significant operational advantage. These real-world applications show the system's capacity to deliver tangible benefits, including improved operational visibility, optimized maintenance, and enhanced energy efficiency, whether in a dense North American city or a sprawling Latin American metropolis.

By successfully bundling advanced AI-driven hardware with radically simplified global connectivity, the partnership sets a powerful precedent. This model provides a clear blueprint for how other complex IoT solutions—from smart water meters and waste management sensors to traffic control systems—can be deployed at scale. This integrated approach is not just about making streetlights smarter; it's about laying a foundational, globally scalable blueprint for the interconnected, efficient, and sustainable cities of the future.