Bristol has been named as the UK’s top smart city outside London and the only regional centre classified as a leader for digital innovation.
The accolades emerge from the UK’s first Smart Cities Index, which compares and evaluates 10 leading UK smart cities. 
The report has been produced by Chinese information and communications giant Huawei, which in 2014 chose Bristol as the home for a new research and development centre because of its talent pool and position as a hub for cutting-edge innovation.
The centre carries out world-beating research into ICT chips, software, and analogue chip technology.
The Smart Cities Index celebrates best practice and identifies challenges which the centres need to be overcome to become smarter.
It comes hot on the heels of a Tech Nation report which identified Bristol as the most productive digital tech cluster in the UK.
Bristol was also named the UK’s only fast-growing and globally-significant hi-tech cluster in the UK by McKinsey & Co/Centre for Cities in 2014.
Huawei’s report notes Bristol’s strengths in open data access, energy innovation and community engagement.
These help make it, and London, the only UK cities classified as smart city ‘leaders’ and are setting themselves apart from the others through their clarity, breadth and inclusiveness of their smart city visions and planning.
Bristol and London are also leading the way in implementing significant projects at both the pilot and full-scale levels. The other eight cities in report are identified as ‘contenders’, ‘challengers’ or ‘followers’.
Huawei evaluated each city’s strategy to develop and exploit digital technologies and services – with Bristol gaining the top mark of 92 points out of a possible 100.
Bristol also came out top for stakeholder engagement, implementation of projects and delivery of its digital strategy – giving it an overall score in the Smart Cities Index of 80.2, a fraction behind London at 80.5.
Rick Chapman, hi-tech sector specialist at Invest Bristol and Bath – the region’s inward investment agency, said: “To be named as the top city for digital innovation and one of only two smart city leaders in the UK is fantastic news for Bristol.
“This is testament to the city’s extensive smart city strategy and ambitious goals but also to its commitment to delivering on projects and working well with communities and stakeholders to make them happen.
“Bristol is fast becoming known as a national and international digital hub and this report cements our position as leading the UK in this sector.”
Among the projects giving Bristol such a pivotal position in the report is Playable City, an initiative based at the Watershed Media Centre which brings together artists and designers from the UK and beyond to experiment and prototype playful interventions that use creative technologies to rethink public space
Watershed creative director Clare Reddington said: “All over the world, governments and technology companies are investing in smart systems for cities, using networks and sensors to join up services and collect data, as a drive for efficiency.
“Playable City is born out of Bristol’s unique take on people-centred technology solutions and the belief that our future cities need to be democratic, surprising and inclusive to remain relevant and engaging. We are delighted we have been able to take this uniquely Bristolian way of thinking and share it with the world.”
Huawei UK CEO Gordon Luo said: “Bristol is a city that is driving the UK’s digital agenda, highlighted by its pioneering smart cities innovations.
“We opened our Bristol R&D centre in 2014 as part of Huawei’s UK Innovation Programme, precisely because we were attracted by the highly-skilled technology professionals in the area and the city’s open mindset towards innovation.
“Our work in Bristol is genuinely world-class and is part of that city-wide drive towards a smarter, tech-driven future.”
The other cities in the report are Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Leeds, Peterborough, Nottingham and Sheffield.
The full report can be downloaded here
