2025 Tomorrow.City Shanghai Opens, Spotlighting Global Smart City Innovation

Published September 16th, 2025 - 07:52 GMT

2025 Tomorrow.City Shanghai Opens, Spotlighting Global Smart City Innovation

The 2025 Tomorrow.City Shanghai (TCS 2025) opened at Zhangjiang Science Hall under the theme “Challenge and Solution”.

With its expanded scale, TCS 2025 welcomed delegations from more than 110 cities across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Discussions centered on four key domains: Tomorrow.Technologies, Tomorrow.Mobility, Tomorrow.Environment, and Tomorrow.Utilities. Over 100 exhibitors presented cutting-edge solutions, showcasing China’s growing leadership in smart city innovation while creating new avenues for international collaboration. The agenda featured 20 Industry Roundtables, 32 City Shows, and more than 40 Closed-Door Meetings aimed at driving knowledge exchange and accelerating project implementation.

The event also hosted the ceremony of Region & China Smart City Awards. These awards highlight Asia’s most impactful practices in digital transformation, low-carbon transition, and public service innovation. Among the eight winners of Best Projects (X-SDI) Awards are Public Establishment for Industrial Estates (Madayn) of Oman, the UAE MOHAP, along with Kazakhstan, New Zealand , Malaysia, Thailand, and China. The Leadership Awards – Young Talent distinction was presented to HRH Shaikh Essa Abdulla Essa Abdulaziz Al Mualla, UAE.

At the opening ceremony, international delegates emphasized the role of innovation in shaping resilient, sustainable cities. The launch of Tomorrow.City Community Shanghai marked the first physical hub of the global network, providing a trusted platform for collaboration and project acceleration. Complementing this milestone, the Collaboration List of City Challenges & Opportunities was released together with 16 international cities, outlining priority areas such as smart governance, green transition, and infrastructure renewal to foster deeper global partnerships.

Background Information

Smart City Expo World Congress

Asia holds 60% of the global population. With its diverse ethnicities, geographical environments, historical cultures, and economic development backgrounds, urban development in this region is full of tremendous potential and rich diversity. In order to further encourage and promote the development of these diverse cities, the 「Region Smart City Awards*」, has been established for the first time.

The aim of this award is to set benchmarks for the development of Asian cities by selecting and recognizing outstanding projects, enterprises, and leaders. By sharing their successful experiences, cases, and insights, we hope to connect the challenges of urban development with business solutions, promote substantive cooperation between government and business, and drive the smart transformation of Asian cities in digitalization, green low-carbon, and sustainable development fields.

Emerging Cities in Asia refer to Asian cities where the economy is rapidly growing and urbanization is accelerating. These cities usually have large populations, active commercial activities, and increasing international influence. They demonstrate significant development potential in various fields such as economy, technology, education, and culture. The main challenges faced by these cities include balancing infrastructure construction, environmental protection, and social welfare. Meanwhile, the strong interest and significant achievements of emerging cities in Asia in smart city construction and innovative technology applications are gradually becoming a focus of global attention.