It’s all happening in Riverside Sunderland, which is having a major makeover in the city centre. They’re trying to make it a place where people can live, study, work and play, that's good for the planet too - no pollution and eco-friendly.

They’re transforming the city into a cool and lively place too. Picture this –eco-friendly homes, trendy shops, new spaces to hang out with your friends, new businesses and recreation all blended with a cultural scene.

Sunderland is already winning awards for being super smart with technology and innovation. They are on their way to becoming one of the smartest cities in the UK and you'll get to experience it all at Expo Sunderland.

To celebrate their bold transformation, Expo Sunderland is all about coming together to find new ways to make our city healthier, our homes greener, and our lives better! The big events will start in 2025 where they’ll explore creative solutions to improve our Future Living, in our Future Homes, in our Future City.

This year they will start to bring the city centre to life with pilot events for Expo that will give their visitors a chance to test some new attractions to help them shape what's to come in 2025!

In 2025, Expo Sunderland will showcase many of the stories of the city’s incredible transformations, including: 

• Boldyn Networks are building a new 5G centric network to accelerate adoption of transformative digital services as part of their 20-year partnership for Sunderland’s ambition to be a digitally enabled, UK smart city leader.
• British Esports - the UK's National Esports Federation is creating a state-of-the-art National Esports Performance Campus... a multi-site venue opening early next year.
• Envision AESC is building its biggest ever European gigafactory in Sunderland (opens in 2024).
• Global entertainment company Fulwell 73 Productions and Cain International is building Crown Works Studios in Sunderland - one of Europe's largest high-end TV and Film Studios.
• Microsoft has partnered with Culture House Sunderland, the National Centre for Creative Smart Cities (opening 2025).
• Nissan and its partners have announced a £2bn plan to build three electric car models at its Sunderland factory. The Japanese firm will build electric Qashqai and Juke models at the plant alongside the next generation of the electric Leaf, which is already produced here.
• North-East Screen and Ocado Retail moved into the Beam: Grade A office building overlooking the river – part of the one million square feet of new office space created as part of Sunderland’s transformation.
• Sunderland College, Sunderland City Council and MOBIE are together creating a ground-breaking Housing Innovation & Construction Skills Academy that will train people in the region to build and upgrade the city’s homes.
• Viridor completed its acquisition of Quantafuel’s 110,000 tonne capacity chemical recycling plant and Wastefront A/S plans to construct the UK’s greenest tyre recycling plant at Port of Sunderland.
• A pilot is underway to test the feasibility for the UK’s largest mine water heat network, created at the former Wearmouth Colliery.