AI urban intelligence for measurable sustainable transformation
From invisible urban assets to measurable climate, social and economic impact — the decision layer for the sustainable transformation of cities.
A decision layer for the cities we already built
EIRA is an AI-powered urban intelligence platform that identifies, evaluates and activates underused urban assets — starting with rooftops, courtyards, façades and residual spaces — and turns them into measurable climate, social and economic value.
Cities face mounting pressure from density, heat, water runoff, housing scarcity, fragmented infrastructure and the lack of shared green space. Yet much of the surface that could absorb that pressure stays invisible: blocked by dispersed data, regulatory uncertainty and slow, manual decision-making.
EIRA closes that gap by combining urban and geospatial data, regulation, climate indicators, artificial intelligence and expert human validation into a single system. The platform tells cities, asset owners, operators and investors which urban assets can be activated, for what use, under which regulatory conditions, at what cost, and with what measurable impact.
Concretely, EIRA creates metrics on every roof. Its algorithm reads each surface and turns it into a structured set of measurements — climate, water, biodiversity, solar, structural and regulatory — and those metrics scale the design and implementation delivered through Aire, EIRA's studio. The algorithm reads and scores at volume; Aire executes the validated design, measured against the same metrics.
The near-term wedge is concrete and monetisable today: EIRA replaces the slow, fragmented pre-construction analysis of rooftop and surface projects with a single technological assessment — cutting cost by 40–70% and decision time from months to weeks. The long-term vision is to become the intelligence layer for the sustainable transformation of cities.
Urban value is locked by structural failures in decision-making
Large amounts of urban space remain underused — above all the surfaces on and between buildings. Rooftops, courtyards and façades could carry green infrastructure, solar energy, water retention, biodiversity, lightweight uses, housing extensions or climate adaptation. Instead, identifying and activating them is slow, fragmented and expensive: data is dispersed, regulatory risk surfaces too late, feasibility is assessed by hand, and no one holds an integrated view of viability, impact and economics.
The result is a paradox: cities generate enormous volumes of data, but that data rarely becomes an actionable decision.
A multimodal intelligence engine for the built environment
EIRA integrates geospatial data, satellite imagery, cadastral information, planning rules, climate data and energy infrastructure with human-in-the-loop expert validation to produce structured assessments of urban assets. It works through a layered model:
For each asset, EIRA delivers a decision-ready output:
- Viability map & available-surface estimation
- Key regulatory restrictions
- Preliminary structural capacity (high-level)
- Regulatory traffic-light classification
- Recommended use — green roof, lightweight infrastructure, solar, housing, water, biodiversity, or non-activable
- Initial CAPEX estimation
- Estimated environmental & social impact
EIRA does not simply visualise the city. It helps decide what can be done, where, why, at what cost, and with what impact.
An architecture that compounds with every decision
EIRA's engine is a multimodal AI architecture that combines geospatial analysis of the built environment, automatic interpretation of urban regulation, infrastructure-opportunity identification, preliminary viability assessment, urban simulation, energy and climate impact estimation, and expert validation.
It is designed as a cumulative intelligence system: every city, asset and decision improves the quality of future assessments. This builds a defensible data advantage and a high-friction substitution model — especially once EIRA is embedded in institutional workflows, asset portfolios and historical decision records.
The initial MVP focuses on Urban Asset Intelligence, specifically the assessment of rooftops for housing, green infrastructure, solar energy and lightweight urban uses.
In practice, the architecture separates the algorithm from the build. EIRA Core reads each roof and produces its metrics at volume — the part that scales without linear cost. Aire, EIRA's design studio, consumes those metrics to scale design and implementation on validated assets, closing the loop from measurement to executed, measured outcome. The metrics are the product; the studio is how they become built reality.
A beachhead with proven willingness to pay
The first opportunity is the activation of rooftops and underused surfaces in dense cities — Madrid, London, Tokyo, Barcelona, Shanghai, Shenzhen — where growth can no longer be horizontal. Demand is driven by climate adaptation, ESG regulation, green infrastructure and real-estate transformation.
Based on cities ≥300k inhabitants, the current model state and EIRA's internal pricing, aligned with existing urban expenditure. Source: OECD — Urban Governance & Planning Expenditure. Figures reflect the rooftop beachhead; the addressable layer expands materially as EIRA extends to other surfaces and city-scale decisions.
Market validation
Precedent: 10–20% of buildings in central Tokyo already carry activated roofs. Madrid is launching policies to incentivise sustainable urban growth (Madrid 360). Sources: IEA · European Commission (JRC) · Bloomberg · Urban Land Institute.
Initial target customers
- Large real-estate owners
- Hotel groups & hospitality portfolios
- Utilities and water/energy operators
- Infrastructure and impact funds
- Municipalities & metropolitan agencies
- Urban planning, sustainability & climate departments
- Corporate owners of urban portfolios
The market today is incomplete: existing tools are either single-dimension verticals, visualisation-first digital twins, or data platforms without urban decision logic. EIRA integrates regulation, technical feasibility, climate impact, economics and execution potential in one decision system.
Three layers aligned with how cities decide
MVP monetisation — replacing pre-construction analysis
When an owner evaluates developing on a rooftop, today's pre-construction phase — urban planning pre-studies, legal due diligence and technical pre-studies — costs €12,000–40,000 per building and takes 2–6 months. EIRA consolidates it into a single technological assessment delivered before any CAPEX is committed.
No new spending category is added — the traditional preliminary analysis is replaced, and the total cost stays below the equivalent traditional study.
| Case | Buildings | Traditional cost | Traditional time | EIRA cost | EIRA time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case 1 | 1 | €20,000–25,000 | 2–4 months | €16,000 | 1–2 weeks |
| Case 2 | 3 | €60,000–90,000 | 3–5 months | €34,000 | 2–3 weeks |
| Case 3 | 10 | €200,000–300,000 | 4–6 months | €60,000 | 3–4 weeks |
Cost reduction per asset: 40–70%. Decision time: from months to weeks. Marginal cost falls with volume, and operational risk drops as decisions are de-risked before capital is committed.
The integrated decision layer others lack
Integrated decision layer
Regulation, technical feasibility, environmental impact and economics in one system.
Public–private native
Operates where pure-SaaS and traditional consulting fail — between cities, owners, investors and partners.
Capital-light
Captures value without assuming construction CAPEX or operational risk.
Cumulative, comparable data
Each new asset, city and decision improves the system for the next.
High switching friction
Once embedded in institutional workflows, historical datasets and portfolio strategy, EIRA is hard to replace.
A market built for EIRA's model
China is a strategic market for EIRA because of its scale, density, speed of urban transformation and strong national interest in smart cities, climate adaptation, green infrastructure and digital urban management. Many Chinese cities face exactly the pressures EIRA addresses — heat, density, housing pressure, water runoff, biodiversity loss and the need to regenerate existing urban fabric — and they have the technological, infrastructural and institutional capacity to scale urban innovation rapidly.
EIRA contributes a decision platform that pinpoints where existing urban surfaces can become measurable climate and social infrastructure. The model is especially relevant for:
- Dense urban districts & rooftop activation
- Climate-resilient real estate
- Water-positive urban strategies
- Solar & green infrastructure
- Hospitality & commercial portfolios
- Urban regeneration zones
- ESG & sustainability reporting for large asset owners
China's flagship "city of the future" — a national Millennium Project ~105 km from Beijing — shows where EIRA fits in the country's new-area model.
Xiong'an proves the appetite — and the budget — for AI-native, ecology-first urbanism at national scale. But a city brain and a digital twin simulate and orchestrate the city from above; they don't decide, surface by surface, which roof becomes a green roof, a solar array or a water-retention layer, under which rules and at what impact. That asset-level decision is exactly EIRA's layer. EIRA's metrics on every roof are the granular complement to the macro digital twin — the bridge that turns a 70%-green ambition into activated, measured infrastructure, and the model extends naturally across China's broader new-area programme.
The entry strategy centres on partnerships with local urban-innovation platforms, real-estate groups, universities, municipalities, technology providers and sustainability investors — using the Copa Innovación China as the gateway to identify strategic partners, test market interest and adapt to Chinese urban, regulatory and data environments.
That sequencing is deliberate. In a data-sensitive market, the first move is a local partner and a compliant, locally-hosted data layer — in line with China's data-localization regime (e.g. PIPL) — which positions EIRA's per-roof metrics as a complement to national priorities (dual-carbon goals, sponge-city water resilience) rather than a foreign data play.
Validate in Europe, scale by portfolio, enter China
Europe proves the engine; China starts now. EIRA Core is validated on real European assets and ready to localise — not "someday," but through the partner and pilot this competition unlocks. The deliberate first move in China is the local partnership and a compliant data layer, because that is what makes an asset-level intelligence product both credible and operable there.
Customer access is progressive, matched to system maturity: a B2B priority focus (large urban-asset owners, utilities, corporates with urban portfolios, impact & infrastructure funds) alongside a B2G institutional anchor (municipalities, metropolitan entities, planning and sustainability departments).
Sustainability as a measurable investment logic
EIRA turns sustainability from an abstract goal into a measurable urban investment logic — making impact a variable that owners and cities can price, compare and act on.
Backed by research, technology and institutions
EIRA is founder-led and built on an applied research–practice model. Its development connects urban planning, artificial intelligence, sustainability, design, real estate, public policy and climate resilience — anchored in collaborations and networks linked to IE University, MIT, AWS, Universidade da Coruña and public and urban-innovation partners.
This ecosystem gives EIRA credibility, technical depth and access to applied research, pilot opportunities and internationalisation pathways — the bridge between academic rigour and commercial execution that an urban decision layer requires.
A multifaceted team with deep overseas experience. EIRA is founder-led and supported by a team and advisory network whose common thread is exactly what an international urban platform needs: cross-cultural, on-the-ground experience across continents — spanning multilateral institutions, public policy, academia, law and design — which is what de-risks expansion into demanding markets such as China.
Nearly two decades of United Nations field experience across continents — with UNDP, IAEA, ESCWA and OCHA — including assignments in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia), the Sahel (Mali), Central America and the Middle East, working at the intersection of governance, development and complex conflict.
MIT SPURS / Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP). Holds a PhD (Sorbonne) and a background in law (JD) and social anthropology — an uncommon combination of legal, urban, technological and human-systems expertise.
Today Associate Professor and Director of the Policy Lab at IE University, bridging applied research, public policy and the commercial execution that EIRA's urban decision layer requires.
The future of cities will not depend on building more, but on seeing better.
From invisible urban assets to measurable impact