MIT Sensible City Lab Seoul Launches as Asia's Hub for AI Urban Research

The MIT Sensible City Lab (SCL) Seoul research center officially opened its doors on the 3rd at the Sangam S-Plex Center, marking the start of its role as the first Asian hub for AI-based urban research.

This research center will leverage Seoul's entire metropolitan area as a 'Living Lab' for AI-driven urban studies, conducting practical, evidence-based research to solve key challenges of modern cities, including transportation, environment, and safety. The Seoul center aims to build a 'Seoul-style Urban AI Model' that reflects Seoul's unique policy environment and real-world data, and will pursue strategies to disseminate this model to major cities worldwide.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by stakeholders from industry, academia, and research, including Kim Byung-min, Seoul Metropolitan Government's Deputy Mayor for Political Affairs, Carlo Ratti, Director of MIT SCL, and Chung Jae-yeon, Executive Vice President of Samsung Electronics. Director Carlo Ratti stated that the collaboration would explore the intelligent and human-centered evolution of cities by combining Seoul's infrastructure with MIT SCL's experience.

The Seoul AI Foundation lauded this collaboration as a significant milestone connecting Seoul's urban data and AI capabilities with a world-class research network, and plans to support Seoul's growth into a global hub leading AI-based urban innovation.

MIT Sensible City Lab has previously spearheaded paradigm shifts in urban engineering through innovative projects in major global cities, such as the 'Roboat' autonomous boat project in Amsterdam and the 'HubCab' taxi data analysis research in New York.