Imagine living in a city where traffic congestion is rare, water supply is uninterrupted, and civic service requests can be raised simply by speaking to an application in one’s own language. What once sounded like science fiction is increasingly becoming the reality of urban India.
The foundation for this transformation has already been laid through national missions such as the Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT, Swachh Bharat, and the National Urban Digital Mission (NUDM). These initiatives have strengthened physical and digital infrastructure across cities and towns. The next leap forward, however, will not come from deploying more technology alone, but from how responsibly emerging technologies are designed, governed, and scaled to improve everyday urban life.
At the heart of this shift lies data. Cities today generate vast volumes of information, including traffic flows, energy consumption, environmental readings, public transport movements, and aggregated citizen feedback. Advances in analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) allow this data to be transformed into actionable intelligence. Indian cities have already demonstrated early value. For instance, Pune used AI to identify unassessed properties for taxation, Bengaluru analysed citizen sentiment using natural language processing, while Agra and New Town Kolkata deployed video analytics during the COVID-19 pandemic1 to monitor public safety. These initiatives show how data-led governance can improve outcomes when insights are embedded into daily decision-making.
Urban safety and security are also being reshaped by AI. Computer vision systems can analyse large volumes of video feeds more effectively than manual monitoring, supporting crowd management, anomaly detection, investigations, and post-incident analysis. When combined with traffic data, social media signals, and historical records, these tools can generate predictive insights that enable authorities to act proactively rather than reactively.
These applications represent only the early phase of what is possible. Generative AI now enables cities to simulate scenarios before decisions are implemented. Urban planners can assess the impact of new infrastructure, land use changes, or emergency situations such as floods and cyclones. Globally, cities are expanding these capabilities through digital twins. In India, a few cities such as Varanasi have begun exploring this capability2, but nearly all urban centres could benefit from using virtual clones to visualise layouts, optimise infrastructure investments, simulate risk scenarios, and monitor operations using real-time data.
An even more transformative shift is emerging with agentic artificial intelligence. Unlike traditional systems that analyse and recommend, agentic AI systems can initiate actions autonomously. Internationally, cities such as Dubai3 are exploring to integrate agentic AI across government entities for proactive public services. For Indian cities, this could mean automated grievance routing, predictive maintenance scheduling, license renewals, and safety alerts, significantly reducing delays and costs for citizens while improving administrative efficiency.
The benefits of automation can be extended through complementary technologies such as drones and blockchain. Drones are moving beyond mapping and surveying to support infrastructure inspections, monitoring renewable energy assets, and delivering essential supplies during disasters. Blockchain, on the other hand, offers new ways to establish trust in public records and transactions, enabling secure land records, automated approvals through smart contracts, and greater transparency in housing, utilities, and welfare delivery. Indian municipalities can adapt these lessons to strengthen transparency, reduce disputes, and strengthen public trust.
When artificial intelligence, internet-of-things systems, digital twins, drones, and blockchain platforms are integrated, cities evolve from being simply smart to becoming cognitive. A cognitive city can sense conditions across sectors, learn from patterns, and respond dynamically. Infrastructure systems can anticipate failures, energy networks can optimise distribution, and public services can adapt to real-time demand. While such models are still emerging globally4,5 they offer a direction of travel for Indian cities as institutional and technical capabilities mature.
These possibilities also raise critical questions. Citizens need confidence that technology systems are secure, fair, and accountable. Data privacy, cybersecurity, and ethical use of AI must be treated as foundational requirements rather than afterthoughts. Transparency is central to building this trust. Open data platforms like New York City’s Open Data6 allow cities to share datasets and insights as a service, enabling innovation beyond government. Existing Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs) can be leveraged as hubs of data, analytics, and innovation, helping extend proven solutions from a limited set of smart cities to possibly all 4,800+ Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in India.
Achieving scale will depend on standardisation and reuse. Instead of each city developing isolated systems, ULBs can adopt shared frameworks, interoperable standards, and open-source platforms. Digital public goods such as the Urban Platform for delivery of Online Governance (UPYOG) demonstrate how cities can build once and deploy widely. When integrated with national digital infrastructure such as Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, eHastakshar, and the Open Government Data platform, these systems can deliver consistent citizen-centric services to more than 50 crore urban citizens.
Sustained progress will also require continuous R&D, supported by collaboration between government, industry, academia and research institutions. Centres of Excellence (CoEs) can serve as urban innovation labs where technologies are tested, refined, and scaled responsibly. In parallel, city officials need ongoing training in data governance, analytics, cybersecurity, and programme management to ensure effective implementation.
Equally important is citizen participation. Cities must invite residents to act as partners, rather than passive users Engagement mechanisms such as awareness campaigns, participatory planning, and data stewardship models can help align technology with real civic needs. Technology itself can enable this participation by making urban planning more transparent, inclusive, and responsive.
All these efforts must rest on a foundation of responsible data and technology practices. India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 establishes a privacy-first baseline. Beyond compliance, principles such as fairness, transparency, and explainability should guide the design and deployment of AI systems.
Regular audits, clear accountability structures, and accessible grievance redress mechanisms are especially critical in sensitive areas such as surveillance, healthcare, infrastructure management, and digital public services.
Ultimately, technology is a means, not an end. The objective is to improve quality of life, strengthen trust in institutions, and empower citizens.
As India approaches its centenary of independence in 2047, nearly half of its population will live in cities.7 The choices made today on technology, data, and governance will shape urban India for decades. By embracing responsible technology and inclusive innovation, India can move beyond smart cities toward cities that are efficient, resilient, and deeply human in how they serve their residents.
