Within the region, Hong Kong ranked second, trailing only Tokyo, which placed fifth globally, the South China Morning Post reported, citing the ISUI Smart City Index 2025 compiled by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the International Society for Urban Informatics (ISUI).

The index, released on Wednesday, assessed how smart city development affects residents’ quality of life in 73 cities worldwide, including 25 in Asia, based on six core dimensions: citizens, environment, social landscape, economy, infrastructure, and governance. A total of 97 specific indicators, measured by publicly available data such as the number of facilities per resident, were used to evaluate these factors.

Hong Kong stood out for its environmental sustainability, digital economic development, and effective governance, per The Standard.

The index highlighted the city’s progress toward carbon neutrality, advanced digital infrastructure and open-access spatial data sharing platform, which currently offers public access to more than 1,000 datasets from various departments.

Professor John Shi, ISUI president and lead academic of the study, noted that Hong Kong’s result marked an improvement from 2023, when it placed ninth out of 50 cities.

“It [Hong Kong’s performance in the index] is very strong, very [encouraging]the city is doing well and in terms of smart city development,” Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK quoted Shi as saying.

He added that the findings could help inform future policy decisions, such as expanding active transportation infrastructure like cycling paths and electric vehicle charging stations.

Several other Asian cities also secured high rankings in the index, with South Korea’s Seoul placing 13th, China’s Beijing 15th, and Singapore 21st. At the global level, Sweden’s Stockholm led the index, followed by the U.S.’ Washington, D.C., Spain’s Barcelona and the U.K.’s London.