A New Chapter for Smart Cities

How Unyted’s Prototype Village enables future ready urban innovation

Cities are no longer just physical spaces. They are becoming dynamic, data-driven ecosystems shaped by artificial intelligence, blockchain and virtual reality. While many urban planners talk about “smart cities”, few have a secure and scalable space to explore what that actually means.

That is where Unyted’s Prototype Village comes in. It is a living lab. A fully immersive, GDPR-compliant digital environment where government agencies, universities, startups and planners can simulate future city scenarios, test infrastructure models and engage stakeholders in entirely new ways.

What Makes a City “Smart” in 2025

We are now entering the third wave of smart city development.
Smart Cities 1.0 digitised infrastructure.
Smart Cities 2.0 connected it with IoT.
Today’s Smart Cities 3.0 are immersive, decentralised and powered by AI.

Recent research confirms the value of these innovations:
AI can reduce emergency response times by 35 percent and cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 15 percent (Urban Science, MDPI).
Integrating IoT, VR and AI enables fully immersive urban planning (Li et al., 2022).
Blockchain can reduce administrative costs by half and create transparent governance models (Rejeb, 2025).

Yet many cities still lack the tools to explore these technologies in a low-risk, affordable environment.

The Problem: Innovation Without Integration

Public sector innovation often faces three key barriers

1. The high cost and complexity of real-world testing
   
2. Fragmented digital tools that do not speak to each other
   
3. Low levels of citizen engagement or understanding
   

Even the best ideas struggle without a practical space to bring them to life.

The Solution: Unyted’s Prototype Village

Unyted’s Prototype Village fills that gap. It provides a virtual sandbox for public and private organisations to co-create smarter and more sustainable cities in real time.

Features include

• Accessible from any browser, with no download needed
  
• AI-driven simulations for traffic, energy and environmental modelling
  
• Blockchain-based tools for digital governance and tokenised incentives
  
• Real-time walkthroughs of urban planning scenarios
  
• Customisable environments for collaboration, education and public outreach
  

As shown by initiatives like Virtual Singapore and reports from McKinsey, immersive platforms help accelerate innovation, reduce decision costs and increase transparency.

Want to Go Deeper?

This article only scratches the surface.
Download the full Smart Cities case study here to explore

• Use cases across six key sectors
  
• Cost savings and sustainability benefits
  
• Data-backed results and global references
  
• An overview of Unyted’s immersive 3D features
  

Shaping the Future of Urban Life

Unyted is more than a tool. It is an innovation partner for the public sector.
By combining AI, blockchain and virtual environments in one secure platform, we help cities imagine what is next and build it collaboratively.

If you are ready to test smart infrastructure, engage stakeholders or simulate new forms of governance, Unyted’s Prototype Village is ready for you.