“Innovation is not just about technology; it’s about creating ecosystems where cities, businesses, and citizens thrive together,” – Antonio Jara.

As an Executive Board Member at Libelium, Antonio Jara is at the forefront of Smart Cities and IoT innovation, driving the integration of AI, IoT, and data-driven solutions to enhance urban mobility and sustainability. With extensive experience in national and European projects, he plays a pivotal role in ensuring Libelium remains a leader in smart infrastructure, digital twins, and environmental intelligence.

Antonio Jara is committed to creating strategic partnerships, regulatory compliance, and next-generation technological advancements that redefine the urban landscape. Under his leadership, Libelium continues to develop cutting-edge solutions that optimize mobility, improve air quality, and enable data-driven decision-making for a more sustainable and connected future.

Shaping the Future of Smart Cities

Antonio emphasizes the future of urban living as one that seamlessly integrates technological advancements with sustainability and human-centric design. He envisions cities where data-driven decision-making enhances the quality of life, optimizes resources and ensures environmental sustainability.

Highlighting Libelium’s contribution to NEOM’s The Line project, Antonio explains how the company’s environmental digital twin plays a pivotal role. This solution, built on advanced AI models and the envair360 platform, enables the deployment of a Local Digital Twin to identify pollution sources and monitor zones with hyperlocal sensors like Libelium SmartSpot IoT devices. Leveraging the Open Source CHIMERE chemical transport model, this technology allows real-time tracking of air quality throughout the city’s construction phase.

According to Antonio, this innovative approach not only addresses immediate environmental concerns but also establishes a framework for future urban developments to prioritize sustainability from the outset.

Strategic Growth Through Smart Acquisitions

Antonio highlights the company’s strategic approach to mergers and acquisitions, emphasizing technological synergy, market expansion, and cultural alignment. A key example is Libelium’s acquisition of HOPU, a leader in smart city solutions. This integration strengthened Libelium’s environmental monitoring and data analytics capabilities, aligning with its vision of expanding smart city solutions and reinforcing sustainability efforts.

Antonio further emphasizes Libelium’s current focus on advancing Digital Twins for environmental applications, integrating geospatial intelligence, and enhancing visualization through the Citiverse concept. Additionally, the company continues to expand its AI expertise in B2B domains, including critical infrastructure, Industry 4.0, and mobility, ensuring sustained innovation and growth.

Driving Innovation in Smart Cities and Mobility

Antonio sheds light on groundbreaking innovations in IoT and cybersecurity that are shaping the future of smart cities and mobility. One of the key advancements is envair360, an environmental monitoring solution that integrates IoT sensors, AI, and data analytics to deliver real-time, high-resolution environmental intelligence. This technology enables urban planners and policymakers to anticipate pollution events, optimize mobility strategies, and enhance citizen well-being. A notable success is its deployment in Cartagena, Spain, where it powers the world’s first AI-based Low Emission Zone, ensuring sustainable urban development from day one.

Beyond environmental monitoring, Antonio emphasizes the importance of cybersecurity in IoT, particularly through the INCIBE TrueData project. Developed in collaboration with Spain’s National Cybersecurity Institute, TrueData enhances cyber resilience by ensuring trusted and verifiable IoT data. By integrating cryptographic mechanisms and secure transmission protocols, it aligns with the upcoming Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), ensuring IoT-generated data is tamper-proof and compliant with EU regulations.

In the mobility sector, Libelium One, a Road Side Unit (RSU) for environmental monitoring, represents another major innovation. As part of Spain’s PERTE VEC Future: Fast Forward initiative, this technology enhances road infrastructure with real-time environmental data, leveraging blockchain, AI modelling, and secure data spaces. By enabling intelligent traffic management and pollution mitigation, Libelium One supports the transition to a cleaner, more resilient transportation ecosystem, reinforcing Libelium’s vision of sustainable and intelligent urban mobility.

Securing the Future of Smart Cities

Antonio underscores the critical intersection of IoT and cybersecurity in developing secure and resilient smart city solutions. He highlights the key challenge of ensuring that vast amounts of IoT-generated data are securely transmitted and stored, protecting it from breaches while maintaining accuracy and reliability.

Libelium addresses this by implementing robust encryption protocols and continuously updating its security frameworks. Notably, iris360, one of Libelium’s flagship solutions, holds Spain’s highest cybersecurity certification (ENS High), ensuring top-tier protection for smart city infrastructure.

Antonio also emphasizes data quality and integrity as fundamental pillars of security. Through Libelium’s ISO 17025-certified laboratory, the company pioneers new methodologies for data verification and resilience, reinforcing real-time data integrity monitoring. This proactive approach allows early detection and mitigation of cybersecurity threats, ensuring tamper-proof, high-quality data for decision-making.

By embedding cyber resilience into its IoT solutions, Libelium is not only protecting smart city infrastructures but also strengthening trust in digital ecosystems. This commitment to secure, intelligent urban environments enables safer and more reliable IoT-driven decision-making, ensuring that future smart cities are both innovative and secure.

Steering IoT Innovation for Smart Cities

Antonio shares that Libelium prioritizes research efforts that enhance the entire digital ecosystem of Smart Cities, ensuring solutions remain interoperable, secure, and impactful.

A key focus is on the development of Local Digital Twins, Data Spaces, and the Citiverse, essential for fulfilling the technological stack required for modern urban environments:

• Local Digital Twins enable simulation, collaboration, and AI model application on real-world city data, optimizing resource management and urban operations.
• Data Spaces facilitate secure and sovereign data exchange, ensuring compliance with European regulations while fostering trust and transparency in Smart City ecosystems.
• The Citiverse bridges the physical and digital worlds, offering immersive 3D, AR/VR, and GIS experiences to enhance citizen engagement and real-time urban visualization.

By integrating these elements into the iris360 platform, Libelium transforms raw IoT data into actionable insights, driving smarter decision-making and sustainable urban development. Through a commitment to open standards, interoperability, and cybersecurity, Libelium remains at the forefront of IoT innovation for Smart Cities.

Driving Smart Cities Through Strategic Partnerships

Antonio highlights that one of the most impactful aspects of Libelium’s strategy is fostering key partnerships and ecosystem collaborations. A standout example is the company’s cooperation with FIWARE, where Libelium actively contributes to promoting Open Platforms and Standards for Smart Cities. This collaboration has been crucial in advancing interoperability, openness and scalability, ensuring that urban solutions remain future-proof and adaptable.

Beyond FIWARE, Libelium is deeply involved in Data Spaces initiatives, working alongside GAIA-X, BAIDATA, IDSA, and other industry leaders to establish secure and sovereign data-sharing ecosystems. These efforts enable cities and businesses to drive data-driven innovation while maintaining control over their information.

Recognizing that no single entity can solve Smart City challenges alone, Libelium actively builds ecosystems and win-win collaborations, integrating its solutions into the broader value chain. The company plays a leading role in key standardization efforts, including ETSI ISG CIM, U4SSC of ITU-T, and IEEE, ensuring seamless cooperation among cities, businesses, and technology providers.

Through these strategic partnerships, Libelium equips cities with cutting-edge IoT, AI and data management capabilities, accelerating digital transformation and ensuring that Smart City solutions remain sustainable, interoperable and beneficial for all stakeholders.

Advancing Urban Sustainability Through Smart Technology

Antonio emphasizes that sustainability is at the core of Libelium’s value proposition. Through real-time data collection on air and water quality, energy consumption, and crowd management, Libelium’s Local Digital Twins empower cities to monitor and optimize resource usage effectively.

For example, air quality monitoring systems identify pollution hotspots, enabling targeted interventions to enhance urban air quality. By integrating these insights, cities can make data-driven decisions that reduce environmental impact and improve public health.

Technology plays a critical role in addressing global urban sustainability challenges by equipping cities with the tools required to become more resilient, efficient and sustainable. Through its innovative IoT solutions, Libelium continues to drive smart, data-driven urban development for a greener future.

Cultivating Innovation and High Performance at Libelium

Antonio underscores that fostering a culture of innovation and high performance at Libelium requires creating an environment where creativity thrives and failure is seen as a learning opportunity.

To keep teams, especially in R&D, motivated, focused, and innovative, Libelium promotes open communication and cross-departmental collaboration, ensuring that ideas can flow freely. Key strategies include:

• Regular workshops, training sessions, and industry conference participation to keep teams updated on the latest trends and technologies.
• Recognition and celebration of achievements, big or small, to maintain morale and motivation.
• Encouraging experimentation and knowledge sharing, fostering a mindset of continuous learning and improvement.

By implementing these strategies, Libelium sustains a high-performance culture, drives technological advancements, and maintains its leadership in Smart City solutions.

Navigating European Regulations for IoT and Smart Cities

Antonio highlights that exploring the European regulatory landscape for Data and AI requires a proactive approach—ensuring compliance with evolving frameworks while maintaining agility in innovation.

Libelium actively engages with regulatory bodies and standardization initiatives to stay ahead of policy changes. Participation in AI testing sandboxes like Citcom.AI, collaboration with the AI Office of the European Commission on initiatives such as the Local Digital Twin Toolbox and Citiverse, and involvement in regulatory discussions help the company align with EU directives without compromising competitiveness.

Key regulatory influences on Libelium’s development strategy include:

• Cyber Resilience Act (CRA): Enhancing IoT cybersecurity resilience through secure-by-design solutions and compliance with mandatory certification frameworks. Projects like INCIBE’s TrueData integrate data authenticity and cybersecurity controls in cooperation with ENISA.
• Data Governance & Sovereignty: Regulations such as the Data Act and AI Act shape Libelium’s approach to data sharing, processing, and ethical AI integration. Its leadership in Data Spaces (GAIA-X, IDSA, BAIDATA) ensures sovereign and trusted data exchanges.
• Environmental & Sustainability Directives: Compliance with EU green policies drives innovation in air quality, emissions, and smart infrastructure monitoring. Solutions like envair360 provide advanced environmental monitoring, aligned with IEEE and UNE/CEN standards.

By embedding regulatory compliance into its innovation strategy, Libelium remains at the forefront of secure, sustainable, and future-ready Smart City solutions.

Capitalizing on the Smart Mobility Market for Future-Ready Cities

Antonio explains that the Smart Mobility market is rapidly growing within Smart Cities, driven by advancements in connected vehicles, multimodal transport, electric vehicle demand response, and traffic management. Libelium is strategically positioned to leverage these trends through innovative solutions:

• IoT-enabled Smart Infrastructure: Libelium has developed Libelium One, a Road Side Unit (RSU) for environmental monitoring, deployed in the PERTE VEC Future Fast Forward Project. This solution provides real-time environmental intelligence to support electric and connected vehicle networks.
• AI and Digital Twins for Urban Mobility: With envair360, Libelium models urban mobility patterns to enhance traffic flow, reduce emissions, and improve public transport efficiency, especially in Low Emission Zones.
• Demand Response for EV Charging and Parking Monitoring: As the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) grows, Libelium optimizes the charging infrastructure and parking facilities. By integrating Local Digital Twins, the company predicts peak demand, optimizes EV charging station usage, and enables smart parking management, addressing congestion and promoting EV adoption.

Looking ahead, technological advancements such as AI-driven mobility models, smart charging networks, and connected infrastructure will be most impactful in transforming urban mobility over the next decade, helping cities become more efficient, sustainable, and connected.