Representational image Doha, Qatar: Doha has been recognised as one of the world’s intelligent cities in Boston Consulting Group’s inaugural Intelligent Cities Index 2026, placing it in the Emerging Maturity category among 61 major urban centres across 39 countries. The index, released recently, evaluates how cities deploy artificial intelligence and digital technologies to improve resident outcomes, economic opportunities and urban services. It assesses performance across five domains: outcomes, strategy, adoption, ways of working and enablers. Cities are grouped into leading, accelerating, emerging or developing levels of maturity. London leads the overall ranking, followed by Dubai, New York City, Washington and Amsterdam. All five demonstrate leading maturity in at least two domains. Dubai also ranks first globally in the adoption domain for its extensive rollout of smart city solutions and AI applications. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh feature among the accelerating cities, underscoring the Gulf region’s growing presence in the global ranking. Doha appears in the Emerging cohort alongside cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong and Medina. The Qatari capital is listed after Riyadh in the index’s ordered results, reflecting solid progress while highlighting opportunities for further advancement. The report notes that no single city leads every domain, and even top performers have areas requiring strengthening. A central finding is that AI adoption drives better resident outcomes. Cities in the top third for AI use cases deliver higher quality of life. The index shows that expanding AI deployment can lift maturity even for cities starting with fewer applications. Residents across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, including those in cities such as Doha, display particularly strong enthusiasm for generative AI tools and optimism about their future impact. This positive sentiment forms a virtuous circle: higher usage increases satisfaction, which encourages more use cases and greater overall maturity. Smart city app usage follows