The SmartCityLab, an incubator for new urban technologies designed to be tested directly in Milan, has recently been inaugurated.
In Via Ripamonti 88 there is a new space designed for the city of Milan, not coincidentally near what in 2026 will be the Olympic Village.
SmartCityLab is an open laboratory where citizens can experience new technologies that could improve their urban experience, from "resident" innovations-that is, those inside the building to improve the lives of those who work there and lower the environmental impact-to "guest" innovations: start-ups, scale-ups, research institutions and universities that SmartCityLab accommodates in more than 2,000 square meters of regenerated space thanks to a €5 million investment involving the City of Milan and the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy.
The first initiative of the hub is called "Human+AI" and is an acceleration path that with a call for proposals goes in search of startups on the Italian territory, with focus on mobility, energy, sustainable building, circular economy and public data. It is an equity-free program, i.e., with no request for company shares, which aims to identify projects capable of integrating artificial intelligence as an ally of humans in urban management.
Immersive Experiences, augmented reality, robotic interactions and ai generative: these are the cornerstones around which will instead revolve the concrete experience of citizens who will approach the 'large auditorium, terrace, training rooms and the many other areas prepared for contamination with the city.
What differentiates this hub from many other technology acceleration projects, in fact, is precisely the attempt to do direct experiments on the city. Alessia Cappello, Milan's councillor for Economic Development and Labor Policies, told Wired in an interview with Wired that every project funded and developed within SmartCityLab will be implemented directly on Milan in the first instance.
The first step, however, Cappello is keen to specify, is to draw boundaries between the necessary and the superfluous, between what citizens need and those projects that, instead, would only interest insiders. At SmartCityLab they will also do this using technology, turning the needs of the Milanese into ... data, through citizen experience platforms.
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Dieser Artikel ist neu veröffentlicht von / This article is republished from: domusweb, 21.08.2025
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