Japan-based SoftBank, through its subsidiary ST Solutions Taiwan, partnered with Chunghwa Telecom to develop relevant use cases for future smart cities in Taiwan.

The companies signed an MoU covering technological and commercial cooperation related to artificial intelligence (AI) and IoT.

In a statement, SoftBank said the partnership will initially focus on areas such as global IoT platforms, smart infrastructure, smart agriculture, as well as use of high-accuracy location data and big data.

Chunghwa Telecom is the largest mobile operator in Taiwan with a 34 per cent market share by subscribers, Q4 2018 data from GSMA Intelligence showed. It had 9.8 million mobile connections, with 4G accounting for 97 per cent of the total. The operator also has more than 800,000 licensed cellular IoT connections.