Trend Report: Digital twins and spatial intelligence for cities

In this SmartCitiesWorld Trend Report, supported by Dell Technologies and NVIDIA, we’re exploring the impact of digital twins and spatial intelligence on urban environments across the world.

Against a backdrop of mounting challenges for, from climate adaptation to economic recovery, digital twins – dynamic, data-rich virtual models of physical assets and systems – combined with spatial intelligence, are enabling cities to monitor, simulate, and optimise everything from traffic flow to infrastructure resilience in real time. In this report, we look at a number of real-world projects in cities and the cities ecosystem to understand how these technologies are combining to smarter, greener, more community-centric outcomes.

Key highlights include:

• Transport and traffic flow: how cities like Dublin, Los Angeles, Helsinki, and London are using digital twins to move from reactive to predictive traffic management, reduce congestion, lower emissions, and coordinate multimodal mobility
• Resilience and safety: how digital twins are helping cities such as Cambridge, Las Vegas, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, and Barcelona monitor infrastructure health, simulate climate risks, and coordinate emergency responses
• Community outcomes: how digital twins deliver tangible benefits – cleaner air, safer streets, and more inclusive access to services. Case studies from London, Paris, New York, Helsinki, and Chicago illustrate how these technologies support environmental justice, public engagement, and transparent decision-making.
• Innovation in action: a special feature on Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Morocco demonstrates how AI-powered digital twins are creating smart, sustainable campuses that serve as scalable models for cities.