September 6–12, 2026

What’s Happening

System signal: The smart city is becoming less about connected gadgets and more about connected decisions.

• Cities are moving from “smart city” toward “AI city.” The World Smart City Expo in Busan centered this week on urban AI, intelligent transportation, infrastructure, construction and digitally coordinated city systems. (World Smart City Expo)
• Interoperability is becoming the next smart-city challenge. An ITU and UN-Habitat forum in Tampere focused on digital twins, interoperable urban data, AI and immersive technologies—the beginnings of what organizers call the “Citiverse.” (ITU)
• Digital twins are evolving from visualization tools into city operating tools. The Tampere work showed how physical infrastructure, data and simulations can increasingly interact to support planning, resilience and service delivery. (ITU)
• Urban energy planning is becoming more integrated. European geothermal initiatives reported this week are increasingly mapping underground heat resources into city-scale heating and infrastructure planning rather than treating geothermal only as remote electricity generation. (ThinkGeoEnergy)