King's Foundation launches quantum urban growth pilot

The King's Foundation and FormationQ have launched a three-year programme to apply quantum optimisation to urban expansion planning, with pilots in six major cities.

Called Harmonious Urban Growth, the initiative will combine The King's Foundation's Rapid Planning Toolkit with FormationQ's computational modelling. Space Syntax will provide mapping and data analysis, while IonQ will supply the quantum systems used for optimisation.

The programme is intended to help planners weigh trade-offs in land use, infrastructure, mobility, environmental resilience and public health. According to the partners, it is the first publicly announced programme focused on applying quantum technology to sustainable urban expansion planning.

Urban growth has become a pressing issue in many parts of the world, particularly where cities are expanding faster than planning systems can respond. Unplanned settlement growth can leave transport, utilities and public services struggling to keep pace, with long-term effects on health and environmental conditions, the partners said.

The King's Foundation developed its Rapid Planning Toolkit with Commonwealth partners following the Declaration on Sustainable Urbanisation adopted at CHOGM 2022. The framework is designed for mayors, planning authorities and built-environment professionals seeking to shape expansion before informal settlement patterns become entrenched.

The toolkit has already been tested in Bo, Sierra Leone, where it helped local authorities and community stakeholders avoid development in flood-prone wetlands and identify walkable areas and infrastructure corridors for future growth.

Planning model

Under the new programme, computational analysis will be applied to questions that urban planners usually address through layered assessments and consultation. These include how to arrange water networks, ecological corridors, transport links, neighbourhood centres and block structures so they work together rather than at cross purposes.

FormationQ said quantum optimisation methods can examine a large number of possible spatial arrangements across these interconnected systems. The aim is to present planners with alternative frameworks for review by local authorities, professionals and community representatives through a participatory process.

Those frameworks can then be tested on site, including by physically marking streets, squares and public spaces on the ground and mapping them digitally to guide early development.

Ben Bolgar, Executive Director for Projects at The King's Foundation, described the charity's view of the partnership.

"We are excited to partner with FormationQ to explore how our Rapid Planning Toolkit can help communities grow sustainably across the world. We hope that the work of the Projects Team at The King's Foundation will impact more communities positively as a result," Bolgar said.

Quantum focus

Quantum computing has drawn interest from industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to logistics, but practical applications in public planning remain limited. The urban planning programme is being presented as an early real-world use case for optimisation methods in a field shaped by many interdependent variables.

FormationQ said the complexity of urban development makes it a suitable test for advanced computational modelling. Decisions on transport, land use, environmental protection and access to services often interact in ways that are difficult to model through conventional approaches alone.

Nada Hosking, founder and chief executive of FormationQ, said the company viewed city growth as a major systems problem.

"Rapid urbanisation is one of the most complex systems challenges of the 21st century. Cities must balance environmental resilience, infrastructure capacity, economic opportunity and human wellbeing simultaneously. Advances in computational modelling, including quantum optimisation techniques, offer new ways to explore these complex interactions and support better planning decisions," Hosking said.

The King's Foundation was founded by King Charles III and has worked on community development, masterplanning and regeneration projects in the UK and overseas. Its projects team has developed plans for hundreds of thousands of homes over more than three decades, according to the organisation.

IonQ, which is providing trapped-ion quantum systems for the programme, is one of several companies pursuing commercial applications for quantum computing. Here, it will support the optimisation layer of the planning model being developed with FormationQ, The King's Foundation and Space Syntax.

The six-city pilot is intended to test whether the combined approach can serve as a repeatable framework in rapidly urbanising regions. The work is designed to support early-stage planning decisions before development patterns become difficult to reverse, the partners said.