Tokyo has been selected as Smart City of 2026 at the World Smart City Awards gala held at Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), 4 November. The awards acknowledge outstanding initiatives and projects in the innovation and urban transformation industry.
The jury granted the City Award to the Japanese capital, through its Bureau of Digital Services, for ‘C³ Powering Tokyo’, a people-centred urban model built on the strength of communities and collaboration. Tokyo was hailed for putting its residents at the centre of its digital and AI transformation, so that a megacity of 14 million people can keep its scale without losing quality of life. The model is designed to be adapted by other cities around the world. The award was accepted by Yuriko Koike, governor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
This year’s special Leadership award went to Bruce Katz, senior advisor to the US National Housing Crisis Task Force and founder of New Localism Associates, in recognition of his contribution to shaping new urban policies. Katz is co-author of the concept of ‘The New Localism’, a political and economic theory stating that power is shifting away from centralised national governments down to cities and metropolitan areas.
In the Innovation Award category, two winners were recognised. K-water (Daejeon, South Korea) was awarded for ‘Smart Village, Clean Energy’, a ZEB-certified community that integrates renewable energy systems and smart environmental technologies. LinQ Powr (Nairobi, Kenya) was awarded for ‘Second-Life Uptime Hubs’, which repurposes end-of-first-life EV batteries in weak-grid African cities.
Artificial intelligence runs through several of the winning projects. In the Living & Inclusion category, ICLEI Europe received the award for its ‘AI Opportunity Fund’, a free AI training programme for European city officials.
The Mobility award went to the FIA for ‘Risk-Based Road Scores’, an AI-driven digital twin that predicts and reduces traffic safety risks.
In the Energy & Environment category, URBIOLED (Romania) won for ‘Smart Light for the Ones Left Behind’, an AI-managed street lighting project built on 30,766 smart LED luminaires that change colour depending on the weather to improve visibility.
For the first time, the Awards included a Housing category, hosted together with the new HOWS Barcelona – Housing World Summit. The accolade went to the Bogotá District Secretariat of Habitat (Colombia) for ‘Mi Casa en Bogotá’, which combines affordable housing, neighbourhood renewal and mobility.
The 2026 edition of the World Smart City Awards received 533 top-level proposals from 68 countries, reflecting the global momentum behind urban innovation.
Smart City Expo World Congress closes 5 November at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue. Under the theme ‘Urban Solutions, Real Impact’, the event has gathered 1,100 exhibitors, representatives of 1,000 cities and 600 speakers.
