Madrid City Council has won the Governance & Economy category at the World Smart City Awards 2026 for Madrid Intelligence in Action. The result appears in the organiser’s November 5 awards announcement.
The programme combines a digital twin with urban data and AI to support decisions about air quality, energy and water. Its wider operating model brings together Smart Urban Spaces, UrbanOS and CityBrain, also covering waste, green spaces and resilience.
A digital twin gives planners a representation of the city that can connect measurements with simulations. The relevance of Madrid’s approach lies in joining those capabilities across services, so information about one part of the urban system can inform another.
The award recognises the city’s governance and technology programme. It does not, by itself, establish a universal performance figure for every application. For other municipalities, the useful question is how interoperable information and practical decision-making can be organised around residents’ needs.
Source: Smart City Expo / Fira de Barcelona (5 November 2026). Dated award announcement. Image: Madrid City Council / Smart City Expo World Congress.
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