Hyper-connected Singapore ranked at the top of Counterpoint Research’s global AI cities index, with six Asia metropolises making it into the top ten including Seoul and Beijing.

Singapore was named the world’s top AI city for enacting a variety of government initiatives through organisations such as AI Singapore, creating “a vibrant startup ecosystem and a strong collaborative alliance between the public and private sectors” in industries including healthcare, transportation and telecoms.

Seoul was second, with Counterpoint highlighting the city’s government implementing AI in verticals, such as healthcare and education, while companies such as SK Telecom and Naver have invested in AI service innovation.

Beijing, ranked third, introduced formal AI education training for all primary and secondary school students starting in 2025. China Unicom and Huawei have also implemented several 5G and AI initiatives in the city.

Other Asian cities in the top ten were Hong Kong (sixth), Tokyo (seventh) and Shanghai (tenth). Hong Kong and Tokyo scored high in academic research and start-up initiatives, while Shanghai led globally in AI software innovation initiatives and also had a significant amount of government initiatives.

Rounding out the top ten were Dubai (fourth), San Francisco (fifth), Adu Dhabi (eighth) and New York City (ninth).

Looking at regions, North America still in led in terms of AI city development by a decent margin but China is catching up, research director Marc Einstein said.

“AI city development in China is no longer limited to the biggest cities. Places like Wuhan, Chengdu and Suzhou are also embracing AI quickly. Investments, especially in supercomputing, are impressive and the gap between North America and China will certainly narrow from next year onwards.”

Einstein noted Europe only had about half the activity level of North America due to a more difficult regulatory environment.

The research outfit looked at the adoption of AI in the largest 100 metropolitan areas around the world, with a focus on enterprises, start-ups, data centres, telecoms operators, universities on government programmes.

It analysed more than 5,000 initiatives in the private and public sectors and the strength of communications infrastructure.