Bentley Year in Infrastructure 2024

I recently attended the Bentley Systems Year in Infrastructure Going Digital Awards where the company outlined the state of infrastructure and its vision for the future of the industry. Bentley’s solution for the challenges of today leverages an open data ecosystem where the historically disparate facets of infrastructure design and management are unified in a single digital environment powered by game-changing technologies like AI, analytics, and cloud. Here are some highlights of the event:

CEO Keynote–Sustaining Tomorrow’s Infrastructure Today: The Critical Role of Open Data

Bentley CEO Nick Cumins began by addressing the monumental challenges facing infrastructure today. There is huge global demand for more sustainable and resilient infrastructure, but this demand is counterbalanced with an ongoing shortage of skilled engineers and technical professionals. Infrastructure systems generate vast amounts of data in design, construction, and operation that remain underutilized. To overcome these hurdles, the focus must shift from rapid development to optimizing and maintaining the infrastructure already in place. To that end, the company is integrating existing products into a portfolio called Bentley Asset Analytics, which leverages technologies like AI to provide insights into the status of a wide range of asset types.

This new data-driven digital ecosystem, Nick Cumins argued, is not possible under the siloed architectures of the past. Bentley is thus aligning its portfolio with open standards and promoting interoperability in multi-vendor environments. To fully confront the complexities of infrastructure, both vendors and users require better data access, and greater trust in that data. Bentley CTO Julien Moutte reiterated the importance of the company’s open ecosystem strategy, noting that infrastructure data spans the entire lifecycle from project conception to retirement, and the only way to harness this data is by sharing access between stakeholders and leveraging open-source development, open standard frameworks, and open APIs.

Product Keynote: Making the Right Connections

Chief Product Officer Mike Campbell’s presentation was focused on breaking down the legacy barriers that have separated people and data. The world of infrastructure is complex and the various systems that serve it have long been isolated into silos that hinder good outcomes throughout the lifecycle of the product. Bentley’s goal with the iTwin (Infrastructure Digital Twin) concept is to orchestrate the data from geospatial imaging, site scans, IoT devices, and other sources into a single, digital representation. This data-hungry paradigm will necessitate a federated approach to data sharing, both within the realm of Bentley products and outside of it. The company’s current product strategy represents the commitment that was made two years ago to integrate digital twins and data-centric workflows into every aspect of the company’s portfolio.

Bentley also made some announcements at the event:

Generative AI for Civil Site Design

Building on the company’s work applying AI-powered digital twins for asset maintenance, Bentley is now taking AI to the design phase of the infrastructure lifecycle with OpenSite+. Underpinned by the company’s iTwin platform, OpenSite+ enables users to revise designs in real-time with natural language interaction, optimizes site layouts, and automates labor intensive tasks like drawing production. Importantly, OpenSite+ allows users to maintain control over proprietary data during AI training. The software is the first of a new generation that saves data directly into a digital twin, which can then contribute further context to the project.

Bentley Systems Partners with Google to Bring Geospatial Context to Infrastructure

Bentley is enhancing its digital twin capability by integrating its engineering software with Google's geospatial data, AI, analytics, and cloud technologies. In the context of the broad challenges facing infrastructure such as climate change and aging assets, the collaboration enables engineers to design and manage infrastructure at scale. Through Bentley’s partnership with Google, users gain access to Google Maps Platform’s geospatial content, including open-standard 3D Tiles, which enhances digital workflows and empowers engineers to better tackle the challenges outlined above. Combined with Bentley’s September acquisition of Cesium, a leader in 3D geospatial applications and the creator of the 3D Tiles standard, infrastructure professionals have access to a greater suite of tools to design and operate projects with greater resilience and sustainability.

New Infrastructure Carbon Analysis Capabilities

Bentley Systems has introduced new Carbon Analysis capabilities within the iTwin Experience to help infrastructure engineers assess and reduce the carbon footprint of its designs during the beginning phases of the project when changes are easiest to make. The new capabilities enable users to visualize carbon emitted during construction, automate carbon reporting, and explore design alternatives to minimize environmental impact. Bentley’s Carbon Analysis tools offer a start to finish assessment of carbon impacts that integrates with design data to dynamically link carbon footprints to design choices. The tools also automate material quantification, simplify carbon reporting, and provide 3D visualizations in a live digital twin model, enabling users to streamline the creation of carbon analysis reports.