Pegasus Global Holdings, LLC, a private international technology development firm, has announced plans to build a new billon-plus dollar city capable housing 35,000 people Lea County, New Mexico. However, no one will live there. The vacant city will be a full-scale, fully functional test city, dedicated to enabling and facilitating the commercialization of new and emerging technologies. Looking for a place to test out that self-driving truck? Look no further. The Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation (CITE) will provide 15-square-miles of resident-free cityscape in the middle of the New Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert.
Continue after the break to learn more about CITE.
CITE will be modeled after a mid-sized 21st century American city, integrating real-world urban and suburban environments along with all the typical working infrastructure, in order to provide customers the unique opportunity to test and evaluate technologies in conditions that most closely simulate real-world applications.
Some of the planned initial core user application areas envisioned to be tested and evaluated within CITE include:
- Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
- Green Energy: Alternative Energy Power Generation (e.g. Geothermal, Solar)
- Smart Grid Technologies
- Telecommunications
- Resource Development (e.g. Desalinization)
- Security
With the support of local and state officials, CITE will be the largest scale testing and evaluation center in the world. As reported by NPR, final signatures are not on the real estate deal yet, but it involves a big land purchase and a supplemental 25 year lease from the county.
CITE is expected to break ground in June.
Reference: CITE-City.com, NPR
