Global cities hold steady at the top as new hubs surge forward
- Top five cities retain their positions in the Global Cities Index, underscoring resilience amid global volatility
- The Global Cities Outlook highlights turbulence for traditional leaders, with Gulf and Asian hubs gaining momentum through livability and innovation driven by sustained investment in infrastructure, talent, and digital readiness.
CHICAGO, Nov. 5, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Kearney's 2025 Global Cities Report reveals that as the world enters the intelligence age, cities are not competing on size or legacy alone, but increasingly on readiness: the ability to align infrastructure, renewable energy, and talent to harness the opportunities of artificial intelligence while managing its risks.
Despite heightened global volatility and geopolitical fragmentation, this year's Global Cities Index (GCI) underscores the resilience of the world's established hubs. New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Singapore all retained their top five positions, reflecting how adaptability in digital infrastructure, climate resilience, and institutional agility has become the foundation of leadership. At the same time, emerging cities such as Almaty, Taipei, and Rio de Janeiro climbed the rankings, reflecting the shift toward distributed influence and regional clustering.
"With the systems of international order under intense strain, cities are proving to be the connective tissue of the global economy," said Brenna Buckstaff, Principal, Kearney Foresight. "As supply chain hubs, centers of financial exchange, and magnets for talent across borders, they ensure that global flows continue even amid significant volatility."
2025 Global Cities Index
The 2025 Global Cities Index evaluates 158 cities across five dimensions: business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement. With 31 indicators, the Index quantifies each city's ability to attract, retain, and generate global flows of people, capital, and ideas.
This year's results confirm the enduring strength of established hubs, while also pointing to the factors enabling new players to advance. Investments in digital infrastructure, sustainable mobility, and human capital are helping cities from Central Asia and Latin America to close the gap with traditional leaders, underscoring the growing diversity of global connectivity.
2025 Global Cities Outlook
Where the Global Cities Index captures current performance, the Global Cities Outlook offers a forward-looking assessment, evaluating how effectively the world's leading metros are creating conditions for future success. It seeks to measure future potential across four dimensions: personal well-being, economics, innovation, and governance. Within these dimensions, 13 indicators assess cities' capacity to foster inclusive growth, attract investment, and sustain livability in an increasingly competitive global environment.
This year's Outlook revealed meaningful shifts in the global hierarchy. Munich rose to first place, overtaking San Francisco, while Seoul and Singapore surged into the top five, underscoring the growing weight of Asian and European innovation hubs.
Western cities struggled with governance and social well-being, weighed down by inequality and political fragmentation. By contrast, Gulf cities such as Dubai, Riyadh, and Dammam continued their steady ascent, fueled by investment in infrastructure, innovation, and livability. Emerging Asian hubs such as Taipei and Jakarta also advanced, signaling a broader redistribution of global opportunity.
A look ahead: leadership in the intelligence age
The 2025 Report concludes that cities' long-term competitiveness will rest on three interdependent enablers: expanding energy capacity, embedding resiliency and livability into growth, and developing talent ready for AI adoption. Cities that act systemically, integrating these elements into a unified vision, will not only withstand disruption but shape the next era of global leadership.
"Cities are now at the frontline of the intelligence age," said Rudolph Lohmeyer, Senior Partner, Global Business Policy Council & Head of the National Transformations Institute, Part of the Kearney Foresight Network. "Their leadership will depend not only on capturing AI's productivity gains, but also on how they govern its risks. Those that can integrate energy security, renewable investment, and talent development into a single, coherent strategy will define the next era of global competitiveness."
Note to editor
The GCI assesses how globally engaged cities are across five dimensions: business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement. The GCO, on the other hand, examines how cities are creating the conditions for future status as major global players. This analysis covers four dimensions—personal well-being, economics, innovation, and governance—which are the key determinants of a city's ability to attract talented human capital, generate economic growth, increase competitiveness, and ensure stability and security.
While the GCI quantifies the current state of urban centers, the GCO is a measure of how these same cities are ensuring that they can retain – or augment – their global city status in the future. The GCO is designed to spotlight not only the well-established leaders, but also those cities that may be best positioned—thanks to strategic investments in future performance—to challenge their supremacy.
Related research: The Global Cities Resilience Index assesses cities' systemic readiness across five dimensions: governance and institutional, economic, technology, social and human capital, and global integration.
About Kearney
Since 1926, Kearney has been a leading management consulting firm and trusted partner to three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500 and governments around the world. With a presence across more than 40 countries, our people make us who we are. We work impact first, tackling your toughest challenges with original thinking and a commitment to making change happen together. By your side, we deliver—value, results, impact. To learn more about Kearney, please visit www.kearney.com.
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