London the world’s ‘most intelligent city’ according to BCG AI benchmark
BCG’s inaugural Intelligent Cities Index shows London tops a list of the world’s 61 largest cities, when it comes to deploying AI in support of their citizens. But as a project which critics say will “gut” on of London’s most iconic streets to build a new data centre pushes ahead, the extent to which AI is truly improving “outcomes” for the capital’s residents remains open to interpretation.
London, Dubai, New York City, Washington, DC, and Amsterdam are the world’s “most intelligent cities”, by the reckoning of global strategy advisor Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report, BCG’s Intelligent Cities Index 2026: How AI Shapes Urban Living, is the firm’s inaugural assessment of how 61 of the world’s biggest cities across 39 countries use technology to serve their residents and businesses.
Evaluating cities across five domains of intelligent city maturity (outcomes, strategy, adoption, ways of working, and enablers), a city’s overall maturity level score reflects its combined performance across domains: leading, accelerating, emerging, or developing.
London topped this overall average, in part thanks to its apparent dominance in ‘outcomes’ which it has delivered with its policies around AI experimentation. The top ten leaders in this field were found to be using technology to deliver results in liveability, economic opportunities, social capital, and engagement with government. And London trumped its counterparts in this respect, with BCG contending that its resident outcomes related to quality of life and delivery of economic opportunities.
Delving further into what leading cities do with their AI adoption to actually boost quality of life for their residents, the researchers pointed to “making AI an integral part of public services and daily city operations.” And the report also suggested that progress does not necessarily have to be linear – suggesting other cities could emulate this quickly, as “a city can drive resident outcomes by expanding AI deployment even if it starts with a lower number of use cases.”
Practical improvements
One way cities might go about this, is by looking at deploying intelligent city app usage – which BCG says “drives satisfaction”. Cities whose residents use smart city apps more frequently tend to score higher here – and the researchers claim this “includes London and Dubai”, who are “high scorers in app user satisfaction”. While specifics on exactly how these apps had transformed life for citizens in practical terms, BCG added that this message “is important” for AI-developing cities, as while they may currently experience pushback, it can help show that expanding the technology in a city is “a necessary action”.
“AI is a key foundation of the intelligent city, and AI adoption and optimism are not confined to the ‘usual suspects’ technology hubs,” said Akram Awad, managing director and partner at BCG and coauthor of the report. “Cities around the world are creating value for residents in different ways and from different starting points. We built the Intelligent Cities Index to provide an objective, holistic view of how cities shape and enable their AI ambitions and how effectively those ambitions translate into meaningful improvements in people’s lives.”
The report arrives just as the means to these “meaningful improvements” are being called into question, however. The rise of AI is leading to massive inflation in demand for data centres – one of which has now been approved in the heart of a famous London community. Brick Lane – a working class area known as ‘Banglatown’, in reference to its history as a main hub for the Bangladeshi community in Britain – will now see the former Truman Brewery turned into a data centre and offices, boosting internet connections for financial traders in the City of London – an outcome the government said “would be very significant indeed”, even as critics point to a lack of badly-needed social housing, or burdens placed on the utilities bills of locals.
Lutfur Rahman, executive mayor of Tower Hamlets, commented, “I am deeply disappointed by the Government’s intervention to approve a development on Brick Lane despite objections from 7,000 people and Tower Hamlets Council rejecting the application, which includes a proposed data centre. It is a scandal that this will only deliver 6 homes for social rent in one of the most overcrowded and densely populated places in the country, while thousands of families languish on housing waiting lists and a staggering 1 in 21 children in London are homeless.”
He added, “We will never get back this missed opportunity to deliver the social and affordable housing Tower Hamlets residents urgently need. I have stood alongside the community in expressing local concerns about the impact of this development on Brick Lane and Banglatown, including gentrification driving up costs and pushing out residents, as well as threatening the future of the historic curry houses and beigel shops that make Brick Lane so unique. This iconic, densely populated destination is clearly not suitable for a data centre. We support regeneration which benefits local people, protects cultural heritage and strengthens communities. This must always be shaped by the needs of residents, not private profit.”
