Top 10 AI Cities
1. San Francisco 0.0
2. Beijing 0.0
3. London 0.0
4. Toronto 0.0
5. Seoul 0.0
6. Paris 0.0
7. New York 0.0
8. Tel Aviv 0.0
9. Shanghai 0.0
10. Singapore 0.0
The undisputed epicenter of the global AI industry. Headquarters of OpenAI, Anthropic, Scale AI, Adept, Inflection, and numerous venture capital firms. Home to the highest concentration of AI experts and startups.
China’s state-led AI development hub. Home to Baidu, SenseTime, and Megvii. Major public investments, dedicated AI zones, and a strong academic foundation.
Europe’s capital of AI ethics and regulation. Base for DeepMind, Stability AI, and Faculty. Hosts the UK’s AI Safety governance and top-tier universities and tech clusters.
Birthplace of transformers. Hosts MILA, the Vector Institute, and top universities tied to Yoshua Bengio. Fast-growing startup scene with backing from the Ontario government.
Strong focus on embedding AI in electronics, manufacturing, and healthcare. Centers for Samsung, LG, and Naver. Significant government support and a deeply tech-savvy culture.
Home to Mistral AI, Inria, and Hugging Face’s European office. Emphasis on open-source development, sovereign AI, and European ethical standards. Backed by a strong national AI strategy.
A financial and media capital with a booming ecosystem of AI companies in fintech, lawtech, and content analytics. Headquarters of Runway, Hugging Face (HQ), and Bloomberg AI. Corporate adoption is strong and accelerating.
A startup nation and center for defense-focused AI development. A compact but powerful ecosystem, integrating military and civilian applications, supported by VC and government.
China’s second major AI hub after Beijing. Rapidly growing companies, strong academic institutions, and central government support. Major AI implementations in industry and smart city development.
A leading hub for AI governance and digital innovation. Compact yet highly advanced, with a national AI strategy, rapid startup growth, and strong public trust in technology.
Methodology: AI Cities Index
Core Evaluation Criteria
Number of registered AI companies, active startups, incubators, and accelerators in fields such as machine learning, NLP, generative AI, and computer vision.
Presence of universities and research centers focused on AI; volume of publications, AI labs, and university-backed AI initiatives.
Total investments in AI, presence of venture capital firms, public and private grants, and corporate R&D hubs.
Availability of high-speed internet, cloud services, data centers, API access, and smart platforms integrated with AI.
Subsidy programs, tax incentives, public AI platforms, experimental zones, innovation districts, and participation in national AI strategies.
Additional Factors
Number of AI professionals and graduates, international and local expert ratios, competitiveness, and salary levels.
Use of AI in city systems such as smart transport, surveillance, digital public services, traffic management, healthcare, and environmental monitoring.
Availability of open data platforms, access to city datasets, collaboration with universities and startups.
Hosting of global AI conferences, international partnerships, and citations in global AI reports and rankings.
Level of public acceptance of AI, absence of protests against digital tools, support for innovation from citizens and businesses.
Analytical Approach
Combines quantitative and qualitative indicators
Each city is scored across all criteria; final rank based on weighted average index
Updated annually or quarterly