TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada has tapped Google parent Alphabet Inc to help plan a mixed-use development along Toronto’s Lake Ontario waterfront using cutting-edge digital technologies and urban design.

A "No Trespassing" sign is seen in the Port Lands, where Alphabet Inc, the owner of Google, is expected to develop an area of Toronto's waterfront.
A "No Trespassing" sign is seen in the Port Lands, where Alphabet Inc, the owner of Google, is expected to develop an area of Toronto's waterfront. - They announced the project "Sidewalk Toronto", using new technologies to develop high-tech urban areas in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 17, 2017. © REUTERS

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs unit, which is developing new technologies for use in “smart cities,” said it would invest $50 million in the initial planning and testing phase of the project, which will create a new neighborhood called Quayside.

“For the foreseeable future this will be the primary focus of what we do,” Dan Doctoroff, the chief executive of Sidewalk Labs, said in an interview.

One of the first projects Sidewalk Labs will take on is a sensor-based technology to manage crowds on a nearby street often filled with a potent mix of pedestrians, cyclists and motorized traffic, which Doctoroff said could be tested as early as the first quarter of 2018.

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Google said it would move its Canadian headquarters and some 300 employees to the district once it is completed. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced the partnership with Google, said he hoped that Quayside would become “a thriving hub for innovation and a community for tens of thousands of people to live, work and play.”