Intelligent Infrastructure for a Smarter World

Nations and organisations are investing heavily in infrastructure to support economic growth, ensure energy security, and cope with the effects of climate change. The task is huge, and the infrastructure community is facing a growing gap in the capacity of engineering resources to deliver.

One of the most effective ways to address the challenge is by ‘going digital’, using technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness. During the pandemic, the workforce responded by accelerating the use of technology to allow teams to continue to work and collaborate, in many cases more effectively than ever before.

Digital transformation is showing no signs of slowing down and we must accelerate the advancement, particularly in the AEC sector which is grappling with talent shortages and growing demand. The demand is driven by the need to repair and upgrade existing infrastructure and meet growing infrastructure demands to support population growth, migration, and economic development. The impacts of climate change are also fueling the appetite for new and more resilient infrastructure.

In that context, we held our inaugural Bentley Illuminate event in Sydney last week, bringing together industry leaders, design organisations, construction companies, and asset owners who are all at the forefront of digital project delivery and asset management, sustainable development, and infrastructure resilience. We learned about impressive success stories and how the best infrastructure projects are leveraging data to improve project delivery and asset performance. It was evident that there has never been a more crucial time for the industry to accelerate its digital transformation efforts.

The Power of Infrastructure Intelligence

One of the standout themes at Illuminate was infrastructure intelligence - the ability to leverage data from engineering technology, information technology, and operations technology to improve project delivery and asset performance. It’s a powerful way for engineering firms to bridge the current resource capacity gap.

Data is foundational to digital twins and unlocking data from silos, sharing it with all teams, and leveraging it into daily workflows underpins infrastructure intelligence. Data can be reused in multiple projects by creating libraries of pre-made components or generating components automatically with artificial intelligence.

However, unlocking data is difficult because much of it is trapped in files, models, drawings, and often (even now!) confined to paper. A true data-centric approach demands that applications should enable your data to be open and accessible in the long term across models, plans, databases, observations, and other sources.

(A quick plug for Bentley. Products in Bentley’s suite excel in their specialised domains, aiming to be the best-of-breed, based on an open platform that is widely compatible with an array of applications. The underlying power to our approach of enabling data-centric workflows lies in the integration across our products through a common platform – the iTwin Platform. This enables users to incorporate project data created by diverse design tools into a living digital twin, aligning it with reality data and other associated data without disrupting current tools or processes. End of plug.)  [Good work, you get paid this month – Ed.]

Digital twins through the asset lifecycle

Infrastructure projects do not need to rely on siloed, static documents. Digital twins grow organically as projects progress from design to construction and into asset operations, continually absorbing new data. Consequently, the value of digital twins lies not just in their creation, but in their persistence – they are living digital replicas that adapt to real-world conditions. In the current industry landscape of resource constraints and project backlogs, digital twins are a valuable method for visualising and unlocking data and, importantly, exploiting it intelligently across all phases of the infrastructure lifecycle.

In the design phase, when ideas and assets are being formulated, the digital twin is the important single source of truth. It keeps engineers, project managers, owner-operators, and other stakeholders up to date with latest approved and validated information. During construction, teams can add scheduling and resource planning information to the model, which improves productivity, helps site teams to work more safely, and de-risks project outcomes. After handover, the digital twin can reflect any changes to the assets to ensure smooth operations and proactive maintenance. It can also leverage data from multiple open and domain-specific applications to provide seamless, traceable, and transparent data flows.

Organisations responsible for monitoring dams, water networks, and bridges are already seeing the benefit of using digital twins for performing remote monitoring and inspections that save time and money, increase safety, and reduce risk.

A Pivotal Moment for Infrastructure Intelligence

Infrastructure intelligence is a key enabler for digital twins and artificial intelligence will turbocharge the journey.

AI won’t take your job as an engineer, but an engineer using AI will.

Artificial intelligence will have a huge part to play in improving project delivery and asset performance. Many in the industry believe that AI will assist but not replace infrastructure engineers, by performing mundane and time-consuming tasks so that engineers can focus on higher-value activities.

The future of infrastructure engineering software will have AI at its core. The consensus is that AI-powered digital twin solutions will have a deep impact on how infrastructure is designed, built, and operated. AI will accelerate infrastructure intelligence exponentially and help the infrastructure industry overcome its engineering resource capacity gap to build a better and more resilient future.

In the global infrastructure sector, the journey to the future is defined by digital transformation and infrastructure intelligence - and digital twins are leading the way.

Illuminate Sydney will return in 2025.

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