The smart city at the heart of the UK’s knowledge corridor

Milton Keynes has been forward-looking since its inception in the 1960s, when it was designed from the ground up as a place for businesses and ideas to grow. The city has long been known as a testbed site for innovation, and its uniquely modern setting and layout help make it ‘better by design’ for new technology development. Its Starship autonomous delivery robots, for example, can make use of the city’s Redways, a network of routes that keep walkers, cyclists and robots alike safely away from road hazards. 

Milton Keynes is one of the country’s leading locations for entrepreneurship, with the UK’s third-highest business start-up rate.¹ Many of these companies join the thriving tech sector in areas like robotics, AI and fintech. Innovators can plug directly into the smart city ecosystem and benefit from real-world testing and development, as well as the support of a city council which champions smart city initiatives. 

Becoming a smart city 

Milton Keynes first made headlines as a smart city back in 2014 with the launch of the MK:Smart initiative. An initial three-year project marked the beginning of a surge in innovation that is still picking up momentum. Led by the Open University, MK:Smart is now a rallying point for smart city projects across the region. 

Creating a truly smart city means achieving deep integration of technology in ways that improve the city’s functionality, sustainability and quality of life. That means not just a stand-alone initiative, but a continual programme of R&D that delivers enhancements to everyday living. Over time, these innovations will mesh and synergise, compounding and accelerating improvements.   

Some of the smart city innovations in Milton Keynes are highly visible, like the driverless shuttles and industrious delivery robots that can be seen moving purposefully around the city. Others are woven deeply into systems and infrastructure, like the sensors that monitor traffic and footfall levels and feed their data back to improve planning and resource allocation.  

The partners building a better life for Milton Keynes residents 

A city-wide data exchange is the engine behind many of the  smart systems, holding datasets and streams of information that fuel predictive analytics used for everything from urban planning to public health decision-making.  

Another flagship project is the smart city infrastructure, developed by the city council. It includes a dedicated 5G network exclusively for use in research and development trials, and a 5G data exchange where the council’s suppliers can input anonymised data feeds.

Connected Places Catapult, part of the UKRI’s Innovate UK, is an innovation accelerator dedicated to all things civic, including transport, the built environment, cities and local growth. Its Milton Keynes office is a key part of the smart city ecosystem, supporting local growth and expertise in areas like decarbonisation, data and digital, and smart infrastructure. 

Integrating technology into the life of a city requires not just technical know-how, but an eye to the wider theoretical and sociological factors in play. The Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute, which specialises in Benevolent Tech, has been developing its knowledge capital in this area for over 30 years. It specialises in bringing new ideas to life through technologies with real world applications that benefit people and the environment.  

Emphasising the human-centred nature of smart cities, Milton Keynes invests in public engagement through projects like the Smart City Experience Centre. Based at the Centre:MK retail hub, it’s a place where people from all walks of life can experience and interact with AI and robotic technologies designed for everyday life, from dancing robot quadrupeds to self-driving passenger vehicles.

Future forecast: an even smarter place to invest, work and live 

The resounding success of the smart city initiatives in Milton Keynes has lit the touchpaper for more ambitious plans in the future.  

The city council’s five-year Technology, Smart City, Digital and Creative Industries Strategy and its Smart City Action Plan outline new developments that will improve the city’s efficiency, reduce costs and improve social care and healthcare provision.  

Digital twinning and sandbox approaches will help model improvements that make the city more productive and pave the way for growth. Public transport innovations already underway include driverless passenger vehicles and a public transport app that uses data feeds on the 5G network  to provide live journey information. Another target is environmental sustainability, with smart city technology harnessed to monitor and improve the living world around us, driving progress on Net Zero targets. 

Milton Keynes’ smart city journey is creating exciting opportunities for the city’s tech businesses and professionals, and all its other residents. And you’re invited to come along.