Cities are seen as the engines of the modern economy. Urbanization continues to shape the trajectory of global growth in unprecedented ways. The top 600 cities generated 60% of global GDP in 2010. Tokyo is the #1 city today, with an estimated $1.6 trillion GDP in 2019. This GDP value of Tokyo represents 1.07 %t of the world economy in 2019. Additionally, it is  projected that 80% of the global economic growth will occur in cities by 2030.

There is a strong link between the quality of life in cities and how cities draw on and manage the natural resources available to them. To date, the trend towards urbanization has been accompanied by increased pressure on the environment and accelerated demand for basic services, infrastructure, jobs, land, and affordable housing, particularly for the nearly 1 billion urban poor who live in informal settlements.

The world’s cities occupy just 3 % of the Earth’s land but account for 60–80 %of energy consumption and 75 %nt of carbon emissions. Achieving climate neutrality in cities will require the development and deployment of a vast array of technologies and solutions in all sectors such as operational technologies, civic technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the 3rd Platform (cloud, social, mobile, and big data/analytics).

In 2020, the world was hit by an unprecedented crisis created by the need for social distancing because of the COVID–19 virus threat. For first time cities closed and gone empty. Their economies were reduced by 85%. The technological adoption was accelerated and many industries were forced to transform. City digital transformation has become a must. However, for many cities, this transformation is still a challenge.