In every smart city master plan, we aim to envision something bold, innovative, and unique. But let’s be honest — we don’t start from scratch. Whether we admit it or not, our reference point is always other smart cities. It’s the early adopters — the trailblazers — that shape the benchmarks and blueprints for what comes next.
Peter Thiel, in Zero to One, outlines two types of innovation:
0 → 1: True breakthroughs that create entirely new paradigms (think ChatGPT, Google Search, or the iPhone).
1 → N: Everything that follows — iterations and improvements, but not category-defining shifts.
This framework doesn’t just apply to startups. It applies to cities.
The first wave of smart cities fundamentally shaped the trajectory of those that followed. But the real question is: What’s the next 0 → 1 moment in urban innovation? What will redefine the future of smart cities?
We can’t avoid the obvious answer: sustainability.
While current smart city technologies — smart metering, waste optimization, intelligent transport systems — contribute meaningfully to sustainability goals, they are incremental. Valuable, yes. But not transformative.
Many pinned their hopes on AI or EVs to be the game-changers. I’m a proud electric vehicle owner and hold a master’s in Data Science — I’ve seen their promise firsthand. Yet even these advances, while impressive, fall short of tackling the full scope of global warming and climate change.
We’ve been moving in the same direction for years — innovating, yes, but only fractionally contributing to the solution. To truly innovate, we must reverse the arrow.
🔄 Instead of just sustaining innovation, we must now innovate sustainability.
This means building technologies that don’t just enable sustainability — but that are sustainable themselves.
Data centers powering AI consume massive energy. Battery production for electric vehicles relies on resource-heavy supply chains. These are not sustainable trajectories. If we are to achieve a true 0 → 1 leap, we must embed sustainability at the core of technology itself.
The future of smart cities won’t just be about leveraging advanced tech. It will be about tech that regenerates, conserves, and respects planetary boundaries.
It’s time we stop just building smarter cities.
Let’s start building wiser ones.
Edmond Shami