Digital twins have helped many European cities to build, improve and operate their water infrastructure, contributing to the EU’s green and digital transitions.
A faulty traffic signal inspired Mark Pittman to launch Blyncsy, a company that uses AI to monitor, analyze, and optimize traffic flow.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) concluded last month after 14 days of negotiations. While opinions on its success may vary, I view the outcomes of COP28 as a historic and significant stride towards achieving net zero by 2050. Noteworthy progress was made during COP28’s pre-scheduled agenda, including the decision to involve cities at the negotiating table to ensure climate action reaches those responsible for implementing it locally, as well as agreements about how the globe can best adapt to the impacts of climate change (which I expect to cover in a future post). Most importantly, a milestone Global Stocktake agreement was reached after climate talks were forced into overtime to bridge internal divisions about how to deal with fossil fuels. This agreement stipulates a just and orderly transition away from fossil fuels and sets a new specific carbon reduction target: tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 to help close the energy transition gap and get on a 1.5°C pathway. Supplemented by other governmental commitments linked to public construction projects, this agreement will have profound implications for how infrastructure is designed, built, and operated. Why such profound implications? Because our current infrastructure relies heavily on fossil fuels.
Countries around the world are investing heavily in infrastructure to support economic growth, ensure energy security, and address climate change. Whether adapting existing infrastructure assets or building new ones, the task at hand is massive. However, to meet these needs, the infrastructure community is facing a growing engineering resource capacity gap. Engineering firms have more work than they can handle. In the U.S., backlogs of orders can extend to a full year, according to a report by the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC). The best way the infrastructure sector can increase capacity is by “going digital”, leveraging technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness. At our 2023 Year in Infrastructure (YII) conference, where we celebrate the people and organizations advancing infrastructure around the world by going digital, we asked all the nominees for the Going Digital Awards to quantify their savings from digital advancements. The results were staggering. Finalists reported a median savings of 18%. Now imagine the impact if all infrastructure projects could achieve such savings, and how this could help bridge the growing engineering resource capacity gap. One of the objectives of our annual conference is precisely to share these impressive success stories and inspire every infrastructure organization