The concept of a smart city has been identified as
not only representing a crucible for technological innovation, a
medium for realizing global integration but also as an
exemplar response for addressing current and impending
global issues (societal, environmental economic and
governance). There is now general consensus that emerging
information communication technologies (ICT) such as cloud
computing can be deployed as a vehicle for catalyzing smart
city innovation. There is also evidence to suggest that cloud
computing has become a strategic direction for many egovernment
initiatives as evidenced by the emergence of global
government clouds (G-Cloud). In this paper, we delineate the
concept of a smart city and explore the propitious potential of
cloud computing to enable the development of smart cities. We
review the current state of the art pertaining to a selection of
cloud schemes currently being operationalized by international
governments aimed at capitalizing on the nascent innovation
capabilities of the technological paradigm, and present a future
research roadmap for cloud facilitated smart city development.