The Observer has published its first AI Cities Index, ranking 57 global hubs based on investment, innovation, and implementation. Abu Dhabi has been named the top city for AI in the Middle East, while Seoul leads globally for implementation and infrastructure.
The new ranking has scored 57 cities across 36 countries based on levels of AI investment (assessing public, private and procedural investments in AI), innovation (capturing breakthroughs in technology that are indicative of greater capacity for AI in the future) and implementation (the availability of the institutions, systems and practitioners needed to put AI to work).
While most analysis of global AI development takes a national lens, this report goes deeper to understand which metropolitan hubs are truly driving the sector’s growth. The findings build on the Global AI Index which has been benchmarking AI impact at a national level for seven years.
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TAKEAWAY 1: East Asian cities square up to US for AI crown
San Francisco and New York are named as the world’s leading cities for AI – taking the top two spots in the Index overall. San Francisco outranks other major cities for innovation, investment and its ability to successfully integrate AI innovations into society, with New York also receiving top scores across the board. However, the research shows that East Asian cities are snapping at America’s heels.
While US cities still dominate when it comes to attracting capital, East Asian hubs are outperforming some of their US counterparts when it comes to AI implementation, infrastructure and the strength of their operating environments. According to the ranking, 60% of the world’s leading AI cities are in East and Southeast Asia: Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing.
TAKEAWAY 2: Seoul emerges as AI powerhouse
Seoul emerges as a standout city outside the US when it comes to AI. The South Korean capital ranks first in the world for AI implementation: the Index’s measure of how far a city has built the infrastructure, institutions and systems needed to put AI to work across business, government, education and communities.
Tokyo ranks third and Singapore fifth in the implementation table, with Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing also featuring in the global top ten.
Abu Dhabi and Dubai also perform well in this category. Abu Dhabi is the top-performing AI city in the Middle East according to the ranking, leading Dubai by three places.
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TAKEAWAY 3: East Asia beats US at rolling out AI initiatives
The Index also reveals a split in the nature of global AI leadership. While US cities in the ranking reflect an ecosystem built to produce breakthroughs and monetise speculative bets, East and Southeast Asian cities are taking existing AI capability and pushing it into government services, factories and small businesses. In the market, this is evidenced by state-led initiatives like Beijing’s national AI fund, Singapore’s National AI Strategy 2.0, Japan’s METI and Seoul’s Stargate initiative.
In East Asia, AI ecosystems also appear more distributed. China has three cities in the global top ten – Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai – compared to a US ecosystem hyperconcentrated in San Francisco.
Patricia Clarke, The Observer’s Technology Editor said: “This is the first time anyone has mapped AI’s ever-expanding reach beyond the national level.
“Unsurprisingly, San Francisco defends its reputation as the capital of technology and innovation. But East Asia’s strength reflects the growing power of state-built and research-led ecosystems. Seoul’s thriving AI economy, in particular, is being built on sustained top-down investment in AI research, infrastructure and adoption.
“What this Index makes clear is that the map of AI power is no longer a map of countries. It’s redrawing itself around cities. Some of tomorrow’s most important AI decisions may not be made in Washington or Beijing, but in Seoul, Shenzhen and a handful of other emerging hubs.”
