Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is investing $80 million dollars to build a smart city replete with high-tech infrastructure, data centers and autonomous vehicles.

According to reports, the city will be a hub for small businesses hoping to set up in an ultramodern environment that will be situated on 25,000 acres of land 45 minutes west of downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The city will be home to about 80,000 residences, with 3,800 acres set to be industrial and retail areas, 3,400 acres of free space and 470 acres reserved for public schools.

Reports Monday also said the investment for the “cutting edge” city called Belmont was made by one of Gates’ investment firms. It’s thought that when the city is fully occupied, it will have a population of about 182,000.

“Belmont will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs,” real estate investment group Belmont Partners said in a press release.

It’s not yet known when construction will happen and no blueprints or representation sketches have surfaced, but in spite of Gates’ not breathing a word about the project, it seems it’s going to happen. “Comparable in square miles and projected population to Tempe, Arizona, Belmont will transform a raw, blank slate into a purpose-built edge city built around a flexible infrastructure model,” Belmont Properties said.

Earlier this year Google LLC announced its ambitions to build a $50 million smart pilot community on 12 acres of waterfront in Toronto. That will expand to 800 acres and become a neighborhood, a place so high-tech Google intends to construct so that it’s able to mitigate bad weather and folks can spend more time outdoors. Google has called it “a blueprint for the 21st-century urban neighborhood,” calling it the first city “built from the internet up.”

Image: Claudio Toledo via Flickr