Abstract: This paper adopts ISO 704:2022 terminology work—principles and methods, regards the definitions of “semantic interoperability” in international standards as the research objects, and then identifies the core concepts, characteristic and their relationships of “semantic interoperability”. It constructs a concept system of “semantic interoperability” based on international standards, which reveals the capability characteristics and functional requirements of “semantic interoperability”. Then, this paper uses case analysis method to map the “semantic interoperability” characteristics of relevant international standards in the field of smart cities, to analyse gaps in the development of semantic interoperability standards and to provide guidance for selection and development of semantic interoperability standards in smart cities, which helps verify the practicality of this concept system. The research has shown that this system has significance for improving efficiency of data, information, and knowledge sharing and exchange in artificial intelligence scenarios, for promoting data, information, and knowledge association, fusion, and interpretability, and for promoting standardization collaboration on multi-dimensional, multi-scenario, and multi-dimensional semantic interoperability.

Key words: Semantic interoperability, Smart cities, Core concepts, Concept system；Standardization collaboration