Tracking the journey from smart cities to AI cities (part one)

In this first part of a two-part special, SmartCitiesWorld’s Luke Antoniou sits down in London with Professor Jung Hoon Lee of Yonsei University, lead author of the Global Smart City Index. They unpack how the index works,  the  growing “AI super gap” between leading and lagging cities, and how investment is shifting from flashy apps to deep data, infrastructure, and city platforms. The discussion explores the rise of agentic and physical AI, what it means for cities to be truly AI-ready, and how urban leaders should be thinking about their next phase of digital transformation.