cd /news/artificial-intelligence/new-york-beaten-for-title-of-worlds-… · home topics artificial-intelligence article
[ARTICLE · art-79376] src=nypost.com ↗ pub= topic=artificial-intelligence verified=true sentiment=· neutral

New York beaten for title of ‘world’s smartest city’ by an old rival and a new-money upstart

London has been named the world's smartest city for AI use in the inaugural Intelligent Cities Index published Monday by Boston Consulting Group, beating perennial rival New York City to third place and upstart Dubai to second. The index assessed 61 cities across five AI-related areas, with London scoring highest for resident outcomes including economic opportunity and quality of life.

read2 min views1 publishedJul 29, 2026
New York beaten for title of ‘world’s smartest city’ by an old rival and a new-money upstart
Image: Nypost (auto-discovered)

See more of our coverage in your search results.

Add The New York Post on Google London calling.

New York has missed out on the title of the world’s most intelligent city for AI use, being beaten out by perennial rival London, and upstart Dubai in a first-of-its-kind study. The British capital scored top in a list assessing the impact of AI on 61 of the world’s biggest cities in the inaugural Intelligent Cities Index published on Monday by consulting giant Boston Consulting Group.

The index scored every city across five AI-related areas, including adoption of the tech, outcomes, strategy, how well governments put their AI plans into action, and broader “enablers” such as funding, talent, and infrastructure.

Based on these scores, the cities were sorted into four AI school report-type scores: leading, accelerating, emerging or developing.

London topped the list, scoring highest of all for resident outcomes from economic opportunity to quality of life.

Dubai was second, with New York City third, Washington DC fourth, and Amsterdam rounding out the top five.

The study also found that despite New Yorkers being eager adopters of AI, they are far less optimistic about its outcomes than respondents in many European capitals, including London, Berlin and Dublin.

Perhaps surprisingly, San Francisco, the epicenter of the AI boom, only came in seventh in the list of intelligent cities, the third of five US metros to make the top 20.

Boston, the home of the company behind the survey, came in 15th, just ahead of Los Angeles in 16th.

Three Chinese cities made up the top 20, including Shanghai (8th), Beijing (9th), and Shenzhen (14th).

The 'most intelligent' cities in the world #

  • London, United Kingdom
  • Dubai, United Arab Emirates
  • New York City, United States
  • Washington, DC, United States
  • Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • Berlin, Germany
  • San Francisco, United States
  • Shanghai, China
  • Beijing, China
  • Seoul, South Korea
── more in #artificial-intelligence 4 stories · sorted by recency
── more on @boston consulting group 3 stories trending now
sponsored brought to you by zahid.host 4,200+ EU-deployed projects
reading about agents? ship yours in a single git push.

Run your AI side-project on zahid.host

EU-based hosting, git-push deploys, automatic HTTPS, no cold starts. Free tier with a custom domain — perfect for shipping the agent you just read about.

$git push zahid main
Live at https://your-agent.zahid.host
Get free account → Pricing
from €0/mo · no card required
LIVE [news/new-york-beaten-for-…] indexed:0 read:2min 2026-07-29 ·