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As more than 10 years have passed since different countries started to build smart grids (SGs), a holistic review of the relative "smartness" of popular SGs may be useful to provide implications for other countries as they plan their own SG roadmaps. This study established a two‐dimensional smartness framework, including functional and technical dimensions, to describe and study the SGs' smartness comprehensively. Scientific research was used as a reliable source to construct SG profiles for North America, Europe and China, to understand the diversity of SG potential, and the SG projects implemented in these regions were used to further explore its' smartness. The research results revealed the following SG attributes: (1) Even if the functions performed by all SGs are not exactly the same, SGs in both North America and Europe are distinguished by their functional smartness, meaning they optimize their support for smart electricity usage; (2) China's SG contains less functional smartness than do those of North America and Europe, whereas more technical smartness related to the "energy internet" transition is highlighted; (3) since the SG transition involves both technical innovations and social reforms, although the SG in North America and Europe is superior to China's in terms of functional capabilities, when considering social acceptance, China's SG may actually grow more rapidly in the future. Finally, we analyzed the challenges and future directions in the construction of SGs, the implications for other regions in developing their own SG strategies were also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]