Current Volume 9
NEOM-Style Digital Infrastructure Analytics: Integrating 5G, IoT & Green Data Centers for Real-Time Governance and Sustainability
Abstract
Background: Integration of cutting-edge 5G wireless network technologies, IoT solutions for sensing, and the concept of green data centres creates a revolutionary idea of digital governance as the foundation for megacity projects. The construction of NEOM mega-project valued at $500 billion in the Arabian desert by Saudi Arabia represents the largest data-intensive smart city ever conceived. NEOM will need an innovative analytics infrastructure framework that can provide real-time governance along with sub-millisecond latency and net-zero carbon impact. Smart city infrastructure models that have been developed primarily for Europe and East Asia do not account for a challenge to achieve sustainable digital governance. Objectives: In this systematic review, four aims are defined: (1) analysis of the combination of 5G, IoT, and green data centre solutions for real-time urban governance; (2) evaluation of the sustainability performance gap between NEOM-style data infrastructure frameworks and traditional ICT urban infrastructures; (3) identification of the governance analytics models that could integrate data streams in real time for policy intelligence; and (4) creation of an analytics framework based on the sustainable vision of Saudi Arabia smart cities. Methods: A PRISMA systematic literature review is conducted in relation to the Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, and ACM Digital Library databases. As a result of strict screening, 30 publications between 2020 and 2025 are chosen for thematic analysis and synthesis. Four themes are formulated according to all research objectives. Results: The introduction of 5G slicing and edge computing into smart cities governance decreases decision-making latency by 78% as compared with cloud-based ICT infrastructure. The deployment of IoT digital twins in smart cities results in municipal energy savings of up to 34%. Using renewable energy sources and liquid cooling in the green data centres brings the PUE index to the value of 1.08, i.e., it performs 47% better than standard solutions. Conclusions: Integration of 5G, IoT, and green data centre solutions into an analytics infrastructure platform for megacity governance is sustainable from an energy consumption point of view. Sovereign edge clouds, digital twins managed with the help of artificial intelligence, and renewable energy-based hyperscale computing constitute three pillars of such an infrastructure framework. This study is among the first to propose an integrated governance analytics framework that jointly evaluates 5G standalone networks, IoT-enabled digital twins, and net-zero green data centres for megacity-scale governance systems such as NEOM.
Keywords
5G Networks; Internet of Things; Green Data Centres; NEOM; Smart City Governance; Digital Infrastructure Analytics; Saudi Vision 2030; Sustainability
Citations
IRE Journals:
Choudhry Bilal Mazhar "NEOM-Style Digital Infrastructure Analytics: Integrating 5G, IoT & Green Data Centers for Real-Time Governance and Sustainability" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals Volume 9 Issue 11 2026 Page 78-88 https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I11-1717198
IEEE:
Choudhry Bilal Mazhar
"NEOM-Style Digital Infrastructure Analytics: Integrating 5G, IoT & Green Data Centers for Real-Time Governance and Sustainability" Iconic Research And Engineering Journals, 9(11) https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I11-1717198
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