Rockefeller Foundation and OpenAI Foundation’s $50m initiative aims to support organisations working with cities to put AI to work on everyday challenges.
At a glance
- Who: Rockefeller Foundation; OpenAI Foundation.
- What: The two foundations have announced a $50m initiative to help cities improve public services using artificial intelligence (AI).
- Why: To support organisations working with city governments to put AI to work on the challenges residents face every day.
- When: Applications are invited now until 29 November.
The Rockefeller Foundation and the OpenAI Foundation have announced a $50m initiative to help cities improve public services using artificial intelligence (AI).
A global open call is being issued for Cities Deliver: AI Solutions for Public Services to identify and support eligible nonprofit and civil society institutions working with city governments to improve public health, economic mobility, environmental resilience, and civic engagement.
It will award grants ranging from $500,000 to $2m, aiming to reach up to 100 million city residents globally. Applications are invited now until 29 November.
Applying AI responsibly
Cities Deliver builds on a 2023 convening organised by The Rockefeller Foundation and OpenAI, which brought together more than 40 civic leaders from six continents alongside academic, philanthropic, and nonprofit partners. Participants highlighted the need for talent, tools, and resources to apply AI responsibly. The Rockefeller Foundation subsequently supported projects in Cali, Colombia; Cape Town, South Africa; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Rockefeller Foundation also plans to provide follow-on grants to several partners from these early projects. Planned expansions include Rio’s AI-enabled flood-alert system, which would reach more residents and cover additional extreme weather events; Dengue.AI’s outbreak forecasting, which would expand from Cali to Cartagena; and Cape Town’s resident-engagement platform, which would grow its reach in the city and beyond.
“Over the past three years, we’ve seen what happens when city leaders, researchers, and local innovators build with AI around real problems,” said Dr Rajiv Shah, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, whose first investment in AI dates back to 1956, during the Dartmouth Conference that coined the term artificial intelligence. “Cities Deliver takes what’s working in Cali, Cape Town, Rio, and elsewhere and opens it up to institutions everywhere, so more cities can benefit from the same kind of partnership.”
Anna Makanju, head of civil society and philanthropy at OpenAI Foundation, a charitable organisation dedicated to ensuring AI benefits all of humanity, added: “Cities are on the front lines of some of the biggest challenges facing communities, and the organisations working alongside them understand what it takes to deliver solutions that work.
“AI can help them reach residents faster, anticipate problems earlier, and make public services more responsive to the people they serve. By partnering with the Rockefeller Foundation, we can pair the potential of AI with deep local expertise and help promising solutions reach more people and communities around the world.”
City governments face significant barriers to adopting AI, including high implementation costs and uncertainty around data protection. Cities Deliver will seek to address these challenges, in part, by combining philanthropic funding, opportunities for shared learning, and access to networks of city leaders and technical partners to help organisations improve public services through AI.
Cities Deliver seeks projects with the potential to meaningfully and measurably improve access to and the quality of public services. The call focuses on four areas:
- Public health: solutions that extend the reach and readiness of public health systems, from frontline care and disease surveillance to population-scale prevention. Includes healthcare, disability services, food access and nutrition
- Economic mobility: solutions that connect unemployed and underemployed residents to income, skills, and benefits, including through benefits enrolment, career navigation, skills-based hiring, and employer-aligned training
- Environmental resilience: solutions that help cities forecast, withstand, and recover from environmental shocks, protecting both people and the communities where they live. Includes public safety and emergency services, energy and grid infrastructure, and land management in communities at risk
- Civic engagement: solutions that help city governments reach residents proactively and respond faster, from two-way service channels to participatory decision-making. Includes digital access and connectivity, court services, and permitting and regulatory processes. Excludes projects related to voting or elections.
Every project must be led by an eligible organisation, include a city government partner committed to collaborating on the work, and serve a charitable purpose. Each solution must include a meaningful frontier AI component, using recent AI models to complete complex tasks, and may combine these capabilities with existing city tools and systems. Applicants may choose the AI models and products that best meet their needs, with no requirement or preference to use OpenAI technology.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis of Cape Town, South Africa said its partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation has resulted in AI-powered tools that will transform how it engages with residents: “These tools will help to enable active citizenry and improve service delivery for our residents. We hope this approach offers a practical model that other cities can adapt and scale to strengthen resident engagement in their own communities.”
In the Colombian city of Cali, the partnership between government, academia, philanthropy, and the private sector enabled the city to develop the Dengue AI solution, which helps anticipate dengue outbreaks up to three weeks in advance, strengthening prevention efforts against this public health threat. “I firmly believe that when cities connect talent, data, and innovation to address actual problems, technology becomes a public good that improves the quality of life for millions of people,” said mayor Alejandro Eder, Cali, Colombia.
Meanwhile, mayor Eduardo Cavaliere, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said the partnership with Columbia University and The Rockefeller Foundation has been critical to transforming flood risk management, consolidating the use of AI to protect vulnerable populations in Acari and Jardim Maravilha. He added: “By demonstrating the effectiveness of our WhatsApp alert system powered by AI, we offer a practical, scalable model for other cities to anticipate climate challenges.”
Eligible organisations can review the requirements and submit their initial application here. Applicants who advance will be invited to the next stage of the selection process.
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Dieser Artikel ist neu veröffentlicht von / This article is republished from: Smart Cities World, 15.10.2026
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