We have run POCs here and none scaled.

That is the defining pattern of this sector. POCs are funded by innovation offices that cannot buy infrastructure. Scaling means reaching the operating agency or utility that owns the asset and the capital budget, and being present through a cycle measured in years rather than quarters.

Do we need a local entity or partner?

For public contracts, usually yes, and data residency rules often make it unavoidable regardless. It is worth establishing what the procurement rules actually require in your target markets before you invest in relationships you cannot contract against.

Should we target governments or the private sector?

Private first if you have no regional reference. Estate developers and utilities can deploy across a portfolio without a public tender and decide considerably faster. That deployment then becomes the credential that makes the public conversation realistic.

The Test has one fixed price, shown above, credited in full if you continue. The Market Opening is a fixed fee for ninety days, quoted after a short call, and often grant-fundable through your home country's export scheme. Every term is on the services page.

How long before we see anything?

The Test gives you a straight read inside thirty days. A public deployment decision follows the programme calendar and is measured in years. A developer or utility deployment can be considerably faster, which is the main argument for starting there.

For urban and infrastructure technology vendors

We turn an Asian POC into afunded rollout.

The POC was a success and it never scaled. Asia runs more smart-city proofs of concept than any region on earth, and the ones that turn into deployments had somebody working the agency between the demonstration and the capital decision.

Book a 20-minute chat Get the free Mini-GTM Paper

Programmes are funded. POCs are where they stall.

Urban technology here is backed by national programmes rather than by individual city budgets, which means the money is real, multi-year and already allocated. Density and new-build development make deployment genuinely easier than it is in most of Europe.

What does not follow is scale. A POC is run by an innovation office with a mandate to experiment; scaling it is a capital decision owned by an operating agency or a utility with a completely different calendar. Vendors celebrate the POC and then discover nobody in the room could buy.

Who actually signs

The roles we target for urban technology. The innovation office invites you in and the operating agency decides whether it becomes infrastructure, and they are rarely the same people.

Head of Digital / Smart Nation programme lead
Utility operations director
Head of Sustainability
Property or estate development director
Head of Procurement, statutory board

What it actually takes

The POC budget and the rollout budget are different people
Innovation offices are funded to try things and cannot buy infrastructure. Scaling means being introduced to the operating agency that owns the asset and the capital line, and staying with them through a budget cycle that does not care about your quarter. That is a presence problem, not a product one.
Developers and utilities move faster than cities
A private estate developer or a utility can deploy across a portfolio without a public tender. For a vendor with no regional reference, that is usually the shortest route to a deployment worth pointing at.
Data residency and procurement rules are the real spec
Where data sits, who can access it and which local entity holds the contract decide more deals here than features do. Get it wrong and you are disqualified before the technical evaluation starts.

Where these buyers gather. We work the ones that matter for your segment:

Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) · Singapore
OSEA · Singapore · biennial, odd years
Asia Pacific Maritime · Singapore · biennial, even years
Eco Expo Asia · Hong Kong
Japan Energy Summit & Exhibition · Japan
Smart Energy Week · Japan
BIXPO · South Korea
InterBattery · South Korea
Korea Smart Grid Expo · South Korea
Energy Taiwan & Net-Zero Taiwan · Taiwan
Smart City Summit & Expo · Taiwan
Energy Asia · Malaysia · biennial, odd years

And 14 more across Asia on our event radar.

Our clients meet companies like:

Reached through the network, not a mailbox.

Ecosystems engaged through client missions, not Transform Asia clients.

What this looks like as an engagement

Turning a POC into a rollout is months of working an agency, so the engagement is a team here. Where the contract has to sit with a local entity, the Market Opening finds the partner before it chases the meetings, and the Test tells you which path to take first.

A named Senior and a named Junior on every account, introduced before you sign. The Market Opening is often grant-fundable through your home country's export scheme.

Ten city agency, utility or developer decision-makers you choose, approached by your Senior across Asia within 30 days. Then a straight go or no-go.

Get the free Mini-GTM Paper

Eighteen questions, about four minutes, your sector already filled in. It scores twelve markets against your answers and names the one engagement that fits, with the reasoning.

Smart city in Asia, answered

The questions urban sensing, utilities and public infrastructure technology vendors in asia ask before they get in touch.

Let's talk about your pipeline in Asia

Pick a time now

Twenty minutes, no deck. You leave with the accounts we would go after first.

Or write to us

Write to us about your pipeline in Asia.