Tokyo, awarded Smart City of 2026 for its people-centred urban model
Smart City Expo closes its 15th edition showing the real impact of urban solutions
Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), the leading international event on cities and smart urban solutions organized by Fira de Barcelona, closed its fifteenth edition this afternoon with 29.721 attendees from 140 countries, and 1,276 exhibitors gathered at the Gran Via venue. Under the theme “Urban Solutions, Real Impact”, the congress showed that the technologies cities have been committed to already make an impact on today’s most pressing urban challenges. This year’s main topics included the affordable housing, climate change abatement solutions and mobility.
The program, structured around seven tracks, brought together 668 international experts and representatives of over 1,000 cities. Among the speakers were Anne Hidalgo, Andre Dickens, Anacláudia Rossbach, Nikolas Badminton and Ayumi Moore Aoki.
SCEWC was held together with Tomorrow.Mobility World Congress – organized with EIT Urban Mobility –, HOWS Barcelona, Tomorrow.Blue Economy, the Barcelona Deep Tech Summit and the Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress, gathering 1,276 exhibitors such as Dell Technologies, Deutsche Telekom IoT, Esri, FCC Enviro, Google, Hanwha Vision, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Ubiwhere, Urbio and Veolia. The Innovation Playground put startups in the spotlight once again, connecting them with investors, corporations and public administrations.
“Three days ago, we set out to show that smart city initiatives are already making an impact. Having welcomed over 29,000 attendees and 1,276 exhibitors, and having brought together mayors, companies and experts who are delivering results all over the world, we can affirm that the message from cities has been clear: they are ready and willing to scale what works and we are ready to help them speed the process,” said Ugo Valenti, Director of Smart City Expo World Congress.
Cities Programme
This year, SCEWC hosted an agenda of activities under the name Cities Programme, focused on the exchange of strategies and knowledge among municipal leaders. Jointly organized with the Barcelona City Council, the program featured the Housing Mayors Meeting, a closed-door working session among mayors, and the City Peers meetings, where municipal officials from different fields met with each other and with organizations such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, C40, the World Economic Forum and Metropolis to share best practices and learn from one another.
World Smart City Awards
Tokyo was awarded as “Smart City of 2026” at the World Smart City Awards, which acknowledge every year the most outstanding initiatives and projects in the urban transformation industry. The Jury granted the City Award to the Japanese capital, through its Bureau of Digital Services, for “C³ Powering Tokyo”, a model that puts residents at the center of its digital and AI transformation.
The awards also honored Bruce Katz, Senior Advisor to the US National Housing Crisis Task Force and founder of New Localism Associates, with the Leadership award. This year’s edition received a record 533 proposals from 68 countries and debuted a category dedicated to housing.
Smart City Expo World Congress will return to Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue for its sixteenth edition on November 2 – 4, 2027.
Barcelona, November 5th 2026
Folc Lecha | Eduard Pérez
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