Page 22 - BENTLEY SYSTEMS PR REPORT - MAY 2023

Over the last few years, digital twins have become a hot topic across every sector. What was
once considered futuristic eye candy has evolved into a powerful and valuable way to combine
and use data from disparate sources and multiple disciplines into a holistic, dynamic
representation of infrastructure projects and assets.

In addition to offering a structured way that brings siloed data together, digital twins can unlock
data from existing design files, essentially lighting up dark data.

When digital twin capabilities persist across the infrastructure project life cycle, they create
workflows that enable engineers to seamlessly conduct design reviews, structural analysis, and
calculate carbon footprints.

Digital twin workflows can help construction companies improve the accuracy of quantity take-
offs, project scheduling, and more. Just like their value in bringing data together, infrastructure
digital twins can connect processes between the different life cycle stages of a project and asset.

As data layers are combined and processes are connected, their collective value is compounded
exponentially. It is this value that provides the foundation for quickly and easily applying AI
techniques and technologies to drive actionable insights and infrastructure better outcomes.

Generative AI for infrastructure

Certain AI techniques and technologies are not new to the infrastructure sector. For example,
owner-operators have already started using computer vision AI techniques to quickly find,
analyse, and detect spalling, corrosion, and other defects that compromise the integrity of
bridges, dams, rail networks, and more.

However, what is new and what presents significant value to infrastructure organisations across
the project lifecycle is generative AI.

In a sector challenged by resource constraints, delays, cost overruns, and evolving sustainability
requirements, engineering and construction applications with generative AI capabilities have the
potential to automate tasks, streamline workflows, improve project delivery, and ensure asset
performance.

Generative AI technologies could give engineers the ability to collaborate with AI agents to
generate and optimise infrastructure design. It could compare designs to earlier ones and learn
from an engineer’s choices. Generative AI could help engineers and construction managers use
more sustainable building materials to reduce an asset’s carbon footprint or calculate an
infrastructure project’s embodied carbon from start to finish.

Generative AI will give infrastructure engineers, construction contractors, and owner-operators
the ability to experiment with real-life developments in a simulated environment, enabling more

https://www.intelligentcio.com/me/2024/05/08/can-genai-enhance-the-middle-easts-
construction-industry/