Busan to host 2026 World Smart City Expo in September

Busan will co-host the 2026 World Smart City Expo with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Science and ICT at Bexco from Sept. 9 to 11, the city announced Tuesday.

Now in its 10th year, the World Smart City Expo is Asia's largest international smart city event, bringing together governments, cities, companies and institutions from home and abroad to share smart city policies and advanced technologies and identify cooperative projects. Busan became the first local government to host the expo last year, and this year joins as a co-organizer.

This year's event carries the slogan "Beyond Smart City, Into AI City" and will feature exhibition halls showcasing innovative technologies and services for future cities, business programs to help companies expand into new markets, and conferences involving industry, academia, research institutions and government. The expo will be held jointly with K-ICT Week, a regional showcase for AI and ICT, bringing cutting-edge technologies from future industries under one roof and broadening opportunities for cross-industry convergence and business development.

The venue will include three special pavilions — Busan Smart Ocean, K-AI City and Smart Build & Green Lounge — as well as a Smart City Busan pavilion, a large-enterprise pavilion featuring Korean Air, KT Corp and Naver Cloud, and an international exhibition hall. Business programs supporting corporate networking, including open innovation sessions and buyer consultations, will also be held alongside international conferences, including the Urban AI Summit.

The Busan Smart Ocean pavilion will highlight the city's identity as a maritime and port hub by integrating advanced technologies such as AI, digital twins, autonomous navigation and robotics. It will introduce Busan's key future-city policies and technologies across six areas: Arctic shipping routes, smart ports and logistics, autonomous navigation and marine mobility, AI- and data-based urban management, digital twins, and eco-friendly smart marine industries.