The purpose of the study is to justify the criteria for choosing the priorities of a smart development of industrial centers in the context of globalization. By analyzing, systematizing and summarizing scientific works, it has been determined that the process of globalization has gone so far that even economically developed countries cannot independently solve production, scientific, technical, financial, trade and other problems effectively. The time of separate and independent economies is over. Industrial centers are the generators and re-translators of global change, the “backbone” of the world economy. In the course of the study, using a structural approach, the authors proposed five groups to assess the components of the potential and the prospects for the smart development of industrial centers in the context of globalization.
