The diffusion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is transforming both the urban environment and warfare. Thus, cities are becoming “surface of attacks” in the context of “AI augmented warfare”. But Cities are also being “AI augmented”. Thus, they support the diffusion of the competing Chinese and US AI technologies. This means that nowadays, the interactions between AI, war, and urban environments are changing the geopolitical status of cities.

Since the siege of Troy by the Greek city-states three thousand years ago, cities have played a major role in geopolitics. But today, cities, from capitals of all sizes to megacities, are integrating artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and the accompanying revolution in warfare.

Since 2022 and the start of the war in Ukraine, AI-enhanced combat drones and missiles have been attempting to reach cities that are themselves connected to cyberspace and integrated into AI technology networks. Their digital and AI infrastructure literally transforms them into “augmented cities” as well as into surfaces of vulnerability, while simultaneously being a major element of their resistance, resilience, and development.

This new geopolitical status brought about by the integration of AI into urban life is neither linear nor homogeneous. However, this phenomenon is gaining momentum, particularly due to the “AI augmentation” of certain cities that have effectively acquired major roles in the areas of national security and defense.

Thus, contemporary cities are therefore becoming targets of “AI-augmented warfare,” which we refer to here as “hyperwarfare,” and are at stake in the international competition between AI models and standards. But this transformation/intelligentization of urban environments is part of the ever-increasing Sino-American competition in the field of AI and its technological standards.

This article, therefore, examines how the spread of AI technologies is transforming the urban landscape, renewing the geopolitical dimension of cities at the intersection of AI governance, AI hyperwarfare, and the Sino-American competition over AI models.

1. Augmented Cities: Global Geopolitics, Local Shock

AI-augmented cities use information and communication technologies to optimize public services, improve sustainability, and meet the needs of their inhabitants. However, some cities become “magnets” for security and defense issues.

Missiles over Abu Dhabi

Thus, Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is both a smart city, as identified by the Smart City Index, and a hub for investments in defense, AI technologies, and their militarization. This last issue is of particular importance to the emirate, given the protracted war waged in Yemen by the coalition of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait against the Houthis.

Indeed, in 2022, the mastery acquired by the Iranian-backed Yemeni militia in the field of missiles and drones resulted in more than four successive attacks on UAE territory by Houthi missiles and drones. At least one strike hit an Emirati oil complex, while also posing a threat of disruption to the region, which produces 20% of the country’s daily oil output.

Hyperwar in the Middle East

Furthermore, the intensity of the war in the Red Sea and in the Middle East, due to the confrontation between ships of Operation Prosperity Guardian, led by the US Navy, and the of Houthi’ missiles and drones launched against Israeli territory, as well as the missile and drone attacks carried out by Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranbetween 2024 and 2025, has been highlighted. On the Red Sea, interceptions have been carried out by both missile and anti-missile systems supported by the AI ​​capabilities of Aegis radar systems and those integrated into Israeli air defense systems.

These operations have underscored the need to integrate Israeli cities into defense networks that also serve as AI integrators. Furthermore, the experience of missile and drone strikes all around the Persian Gulf/Middle East has led Emirati political authorities to grasp the strategic importance of the intersection of AI and defense activities, enabling them to achieve the responsiveness and precision necessary to prevent or neutralize this new type of threat. This realization has de facto transformed Abu Dhabi into a nexus where the “smart city” and hyperwarfare converge.

Cities as Attack Surfaces of Hyperwar

Furthermore, the cases of Taipei and Tehran demonstrate how the AI-augmented city is inseparable from contemporary security and warfare issues. Indeed, on January 8, 2026, faced with the scale of the popular uprising, the Iranian political authorities blocked almost all internet access in Iran. But this shutdown differed from those imposed during other uprisings, including the 2022 uprising. In fact, the cybersecurity units of the Revolutionary Guards also managed to jam the signals of the Starlink satellite constellation, which Elon Musk had made freely available to opponents of the Mullah regime.

Starlink and Urban Warfare

Since 2022 and the war in Ukraine, Starlink satellite internet services have become a major U.S. player in what we call “hyperwarfare,” namely the transformation of warfare through AI. In this context, the Iranian authorities’ extension of the complete internet blackout to Starlink represents a technological and strategic revolution: the United States’ adversaries are thus able to counter the Starlink infrastructure, which, since 2022, has played a crucial role in connecting domestic protests with communication to the outside world.

Conversely, this jamming allows the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to combine ultra-violent armed repression in their urban environment with the equivalent of cyberwarfare against urban opposition groups with internet access. This allows the Revolutionary Guards to maintain control of cities, including Tehran, the country’s political, military, and technological center. This allows the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to massacre opponents on a massive scale by locking itself in and protecting itself within cities transformed into information bunkers.

However, this effective jamming of Starlink in January 2026 exemplifies other forms of opposition to Elon Musk’s company. For example, research published on November 5, 2025, by Chinese scientists demonstrates that it would be possible to jam the signal exchange between ground antennas and a constellation of more than 10,000 Starlink satellites.

To achieve this, a distributed fleet of at least a thousand drones and balloons equipped with jammers would need to be deployed at medium altitude. Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, one of the world’s most AI-enhanced cities and home to a population with a particularly high rate of digital and AI specialists, would be cut off from the rest of the island, its military, and those of its potential American and Japanese allies.

Conversely, in this scenario, the Chinese military, currently undergoing massive “intelligence” upgrades, would be even more favored in its operations to seize control of the city. Thus, it appears that the Chinese military research and Iran’s implementation of Starlink jamming highlight that the satellite-based advantage conferred on the United States in terms of hyperwarfare appears to be temporarily diminished.

Caracas and the Augmented Offensive

This information gap between urban command centers and defense centers is no longer a hypothesis, but a potential reality since January 2, 2026, with Operation “Absolute Resolve,” targeting President Nicolás Maduro as the head of a narco-terrorist network. This extraordinary operation was made possible, among other things, by a coordinated sequence of cyberwarfare, electronic warfare, and intelligence operations. This prevented the police, the militia, and the military from raising the alarm or using certain weapons systems, while the U.S. Air Force was able to target and strike them after securing the capital’s airspace and information space.

The extremely high level of coordination required between the various forces involved, operating across multiple layers and domains, was made possible, it seems, by the AI ​​architecture in which they were integrated, with, among others, Palantir and Anthropic as AI support. In other words, the digital layer that now permeates urban environments also constitutes a vast attack surface, which can be exploited by actors who have mastered the tools and strategies of hyperwarfare.

This observation is all the more strategic given that by 2050, nearly two-thirds of the population will live in cities, and that, according to the Smart City Index 2025, 146 cities worldwide are already ranked based on their ability to integrate digital technologies, quality of life, and sustainability.

2. Augmented Cities and the US-China Competition for AI

It is the case, for example, of Tokyo and Amsterdam. Those cities use satellite data, coupled with artificial intelligence, to monitor infrastructure in real time, detect ground movements and flood risks, and trigger early warnings. The integration of AI into urban governance is part of a broader project that transforms cities into smart cities.

The Rise of Smart Cities

The smart city has long been conceived as an accumulation of sensors and dashboards. Governing by data is about embedding the city in a service-oriented approach that, powered by artificial intelligence, adapts continuously. Thus, data feeds into systems capable of proposing or even executing adjustments in real time.

This change in scale largely relies on the rise of digital twins. These virtual and dynamic replicas allow for the simulation of complex “what if” scenarios before deployment in the physical world, as seen in cities like Singapore, Helsinki, and Dublin, which are becoming urban laboratories.

In the augmented AI city, public governance is shifting from a logic of predefined rules to scenario-based management founded on dynamic adjustments. Thus, the digital and physical worlds converge toward unified, interoperable data hosted on platforms, the new actors in these urban and political spaces.

But it is precisely this dependence on the circulation and management of data flows that also immerses “augmented cities” in the competition between American and Chinese AI models. Indeed, as Hélène Lavoix establishes, one dimension of the great hybrid war now pitting the United States against China is playing out at the normative level, with each of the two major powers aiming to promote its own standards internationally.

Soft Power Stakes

There is no single smart city model, but rather models that embody political, security, and technological-normative choices. In 2026, turning them into showcases and tools of technological soft power.

Within the framework of the IMD Smart City 2025 index, city performance is assessed according to two main pillars: infrastructure, which concerns existing physical facilities, and technology, which describes the digital services and amenities offered to city residents. These two pillars are then analyzed across five key areas: health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities (work and education), and governance.

However, of the 146 ranked cities, eight are Chinese, ten are American, and forty-four are from the European Union. The smart city is now emerging as an object of influence, power, and international competition, with stakes relating to digital sovereignty and control of data infrastructure (data centers, 5G networks, cloud computing). However, the use of technology is also a lever of influence in the rivalries between great powers, and geopolitical and security risks, particularly in terms of international tensions and cybersecurity.

Three models thus occupy the geopolitical space of the augmented city: the US one, with its market logic and dominant platforms; China, with state control; and Europe, with normative governance through regulation.

But other U.S. models of augmented cities are emerging, such as the “Freedom Cities” championed by some US AI billionaires, with a project in Greenland. Peter Thiel, founder of Palantir and (co-)founder of PayPal. For years, he has also advocated for the creation of private cities, exempt from regulations and taxes, notably investing in “seasteading” projects—floating, stateless cities.

Another evolution of the smart city is the rise of Network States, or how Silicon Valley is attempting to apply “soft power” to geography. It is the case of the Culdesac community in Tempe, Arizona. It’s a living laboratory: if the Culdesac neighborhood succeeds, the company plans to deploy similar “nodes” in other cities, creating a true physical network of connected communities that share the same rules of life.

Thus, smart cities are being reconfigured as the integration of the urban environment with AI-driven distributed infrastructure. We qualify this dynamic as the intelligentization of urban space, which profoundly blurs the lines between urban life and the spread of AI technologies. And this evolution, which is just as active in Asia, is one of the driving forces behind the competition between the United States and China in AI technology standards.

3. AI and Urban Resilience

Furthermore, the spread of these technologies necessitates significant shifts in political power due to the interplay between the legitimate authority of a given territory — American, Chinese, or otherwise —and the presence of servers, algorithms, and satellite constellations.

What kind of sovereignty?

The sovereignty resulting from the control of different levels of AI extends beyond national territories and becomes integrated into the stack of interconnected, public and private technical systems that define contemporary urban environments.

Thus, sovereignty becomes functional sovereignty, territorial control becomes network governance, and political power becomes architectural power.

Smart…

Following Bratton’s (2016) “Stack” theory, the “authoritarian stack” refers to the vertical integration of hardware (Nvidia chips), connectivity infrastructure (Starlink, among others), and artificial intelligence systems (Grok, OpenAI… among others), constituting a technological architecture capable of concentrating power.

Contemporary urban governance operates in a context of constant uncertainty, in which public choices can no longer aim for the simultaneous optimization of all dimensions of public action. Local decision-makers are now faced with constant trade-offs between innovation, security, and sustainability, which now structure urban policies.

These trade-offs can be analyzed through the lens of the Smart, Safe, and Sustainable framework.

Safe…

However, as seen in the examples of Caracas, Tehran, and Taipei, due to the attack surface that the urban environment has become in this era of hyperwarfare, “Safe” is no longer limited to physical security or the prevention of immediate risks. It encompasses the protection of critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, information security, and the city’s capacity to guarantee the continuity of essential services, and extends into defense issues. Security and defense thus (re)emerge as a condition for the city’s governability.

…And sustainable cities

Sustainable, finally, refers to a city’s capacity to make long-term choices, integrating the social, environmental, and political constraints inherent in governance. Sustainability thus becomes a factor of stability and resilience in the face of shocks.

The central challenge of urban governance no longer lies in maximizing one of these three objectives, but in managing the tensions between them. Indeed, a sustainable city lacking technological or security capabilities jeopardizes its trajectory. It is in these trade-offs, and not in the technology itself, that the geopolitical dimension of the city is played out today.

Thus, as cities become smarter, more connected, and more central to power dynamics, they also emerge as an exposed strategic space, where urban technological stacks become both vulnerabilities and levers for conflict and supports of geopolitical influence.