Vail adopts agentic AI to boost safety, efficiency & sustainability
The Town of Vail in Colourado will implement HPE's new agentic artificial intelligence (AI) smart city solution, developed in partnership with NVIDIA, to advance public safety, improve operational efficiency, and support sustainability goals.
Smart city deployment
The new platform will allow Vail to use AI technology for a range of municipal services, including enhancing emergency responses, accelerating the processing of administrative tasks, and ensuring accessibility compliance of government websites. The platform operates on the town's own data centre, which is powered by solar and wind energy, underlining the municipality's emphasis on sustainable solutions while managing costs and complexity.
The agentic AI solution, provided through collaboration with partners such as SHI International, Blackshark.ai, Kamiwaza, ProHawk AI, and Vaidio, consolidates multiple AI workloads on HPE Private Cloud AI. This approach is designed to help municipal governments streamline operations, reduce expenditure, and maintain stringent compliance and governance controls.
Enhancing services and accessibility
The Town of Vail plans to leverage AI to optimise traffic management, detect wildfires at earlier stages, and automate routine processes like processing housing permits and issuing business licences. AI-driven compliance features will also assist the town in meeting federal and state requirements for digital accessibility, improving website usability for people with disabilities. In addition, the system will introduce a 24/7 digital concierge at the town's library to provide local information in real time, strengthening engagement with both residents and visitors.
"As our municipality of 4,300 permanent residents hosts up to 30,000 visitors per day during peak season, we value innovation to provide our community members, employers, and guests with the best Vail has to offer," said Russell Forrest, Town Manager of the Town of Vail. "Our new smart city infrastructure from HPE will enable us to considerably improve how we communicate with residents and visitors by eliminating mundane processes, freeing up staff to focus on what matters, making Vail more efficient and responsive for everyone."
Wildfire detection and response have been prioritised, as the state of Colourado has experienced 11 of its 20 largest wildfires within the past five years, according to the Colourado Division of Fire Prevention and Control. Vail's new system uses AI to analyse data such as drone footage, vegetation health, and seasonal dryness to predict fire risk, allowing emergency services to act more quickly and effectively.
"Climate disasters are not a matter of if, but when, demanding a proactive, hands-on approach to help residents find shelter or evacuate. Weather is unpredictable, but we don't have to be," continued Forrest.
Sustainable infrastructure
The increasing demand for AI is expected to bring significant energy consumption challenges. The International Energy Agency has projected that by the end of 2025, AI workloads may account for nearly half of all data centre electricity usage worldwide. In response, Vail's AI platform will operate on a data centre powered entirely by renewable sources, demonstrating that municipal AI deployments can be managed in line with climate objectives.
Technological integration
The HPE Agentic Smart City Solution integrates digital infrastructure, accelerated computing, enterprise software, and specialised applications to provide real-time intelligence for the town's operations. Central to the system is HPE Private Cloud AI, co-developed with NVIDIA, which allows municipalities to keep sensitive data and AI models under direct control, enhancing security and governance.
Key technologies used in the platform include the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software suite and NVIDIA RTXPRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs, which facilitate real-time analytical performance, supported by deployment from SHI International. These elements are all powered by the town's renewable energy data centre infrastructure.
The system employs an agentic backend capable of integrating departments such as housing, emergency services, and transportation. This unified platform enables the real-time sharing of data across departments for applications like geospatial AI, automation, video analytics, and decision-making.
Partner perspectives
"We are just scratching the surface of what's possible with AI - creating safer communities, boosting economic development, and enhancing public services like wildfire preparedness and affordable housing processes," said Robin Braun, Vice President, AI and Hybrid Cloud Business Development at HPE. "By using secure, sustainable infrastructure to deploy the new agentic smart city solution from HPE, the Town of Vail's approach proves that municipalities can leverage AI responsibly, demonstrating that cities don't have to choose between cutting-edge intelligence and environmental stewardship."
"AI can help municipalities create more connected communities and navigate challenges across infrastructure, sustainability and safety," said Anne Hecht, Senior Director, Enterprise Platforms at NVIDIA. "With its HPE and NVIDIA AI infrastructure, The Town of Vail is a leading example of how to deploy efficient AI computing and agents to support smarter, faster city operations and services."
The solution's deployment in Vail sets the stage for further municipal uses such as automated rental management and improved parking assistance during high-traffic periods. The collaboration is part of HPE's ongoing initiative to connect Independent Software Vendors through its Unleash AI partner ecosystem, aimed at accelerating AI innovation for urban challenges.
