This study seeks to explore the initiatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to launch smart cities through developing a framework of smart cities consisting of five pillars namely: infrastructure, health and primary education, technological readiness, innovation and finally, macroeconomic environment. These five pillars are measured using data collected from the Global Competitiveness Report over ten years from 2009 to 2018. Concerning the first pillar, the infrastructure pillar, the results show that the GCC countries achieved a global advanced rank among 138 countries although there is a relative stability in the trend of the rank of the GCC countries during the study period from 2009 to 2018. However, the results reveal that there is an improvement in the rank of the GCC countries in two more pillars which are macroeconomic environment and health and primary education during the study period. Concerning technological readiness and innovation pillars, the GCC countries achieved significant improvement and progress in the trend of their global rank among 138 countries in the world. Furthermore, there is a rapid increase in the GCC countries in adopting modern technology. Finally, it can be argued that the GCC countries have initiatives and basic foundations to launch smart cities. © 2019 Institution of Engineering and Technology. All rights reserved.

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