Singapore is the smartest Asian city and the seventh smartest in the world, says the 2023 Smart City Index. The smartest cities in the world in 2023 are Zurich in the No. 1 spot, followed by Oslo and Canberra.
The index, published by Swiss business school Institute for Management Development (IMD) on April 4, ranked 141 cities by how they use technology to address the challenges they face to achieve a higher quality of life. It takes into account input from the cities’ residents of how technology has improved their lives. About 20,000 people were surveyed on 15 aspects of living in their cities, such as affordable housing, road congestion, green spaces and employment. They were also asked about various structures and technologies, and how comfortable they felt with technologies such as facial recognition and the sharing of personal data.
As the top Asian city, Singapore fared well in areas such as the provision of medical services, green spaces and access to quality education. It was also among six cities cited by the index to have been “continuously improving their performance since 2019”. Zurich, Oslo, Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong were the other five cities. The 2023 index also had Asian and European cities dominating the top 20 spots out of the 141 cities surveyed.
