Recently, Bentley Systems presented a webinar entitled, “Using the Power of Digital Twins to Reimagine the Future of Infrastructure” at the EFCG Tech Leadership Conference online.
Presenters Steve Cockerell, Industry Marketing Director, Transportation, and Kat Flesh, Senior Director Transportation, both of Bentley Systems, spoke on their findings from working with some of Bentley’s most visionary users.
Kat Flesh, Bentley Senior Director Transportation
They provided an update on what has been achieved so far, and what is being planned by owners and supply chains of assets that support nearly every aspect of our lives today. For example, roads, rail and transit, bridges, water systems, and smart cities. Cockerell and Flesh also explored the innovative ideas that are shaping the infrastructure business for a better tomorrow.
Steve Cockerell, Bentley Industry Marketing Director, Transportation
“Population growth rates vary across different regions, but we’re still talking about 2 billion additional people on the planet in the next 20 to 30 years,” Cockerell said. “The United Nations predicts that the future of the world’s population is urban. Today, over 55% of the world’s population live in urban areas, but by the middle of the century that number will go up to 68%. In America, the number is already 80%, and I think this will place a huge strain on our infrastructure assets. Most of the impact will be on our roads and railways as these networks are the only way to keep our cities and countries moving.”
This week Hungarian-based Graphisoft held their Graphisoft Global Press Briefing, with CEO Huw Roberts introducing the next generation of solutions and services, basically what’s new in Archicad, BIMcloud, and BIMx.
While Bentley Systems has had an Academic Program for some time, it has been reawakened, according to Katriona Lord-Levins, chief success officer at Bentley. “It has been brought into the times we’re in, and to meet the needs that we have to create a talent pipelines for our customers and ourselves,” said Lord-Levins. “Not only do we want to help students develop their engineering skills that will help them in the real world, but we also want to get people excited about the possibilities of the future.”
Digital twins can play a role providing accurate, reliable data – fit-for-purpose and useful across the water infrastructure lifecycle. Gregg Herrin, vice president, water infrastructure at Bentley Systems discussed in a briefing with AECCafe Voice the Dodge Data Analytics Water Report.
According to company materials from Cityzenith, 70% of the world’s carbon emissions come from cities, and digital twin technology may hold the key to reversing this.
Lamina Tower, Saudi Arabia
A recent Markets & Markets report estimated the Digital Twin market would grow from $3.1 billion in 2020 to $48.2 billion per year by 2026, at an annual CAGR of 58%. Digital Twin software is already revolutionizing industries such as Construction, Energy, Architecture, Aerospace, and Automotive & Transportation.
An interesting by-product of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the reworking of technologies to fulfill requirements presented by the need to work remotely, as well as address the way we will work on face-to-face projects that are essential to the AEC industry. The need to visualize large amounts of data will propel the expansion from data acquisition to data analytics and business and operational insights. Office spaces of the future may be repurposed for additive manufacturing as the maker community takes off with more entry-level machines, making it more accessible to more people. Drones are becoming smarter, and more field personnel are able to make use of them.
Industry predictions for 2021 launch from what technologies are in place, and which technologies have been relied upon during the Covid-19 pandemic. Even after the pandemic scare is over, industry professionals believe there will be a heightened need for technologies such as AR/VR/MR/XR to allow staff to collaborate remotely. Digital twins, remote working, off-site manufacturing, hybrid work situations and new ways of handling volumes of data are all predicted for the future, as fortunately they were already tools we could utilize before the pandemic.
What will we look forward to in technology trends, design trends, and developments in BIM in 2021? Artificial intelligence and machine learning will help the “aided” in computer aided design, according to Piet Lelieur of BricsCAD. For GRAPHISOFT, the machine-driven process tends to clash with creative disciplines such as architecture – however, according to Akos Pfemeter, we see examples of the ways it can assist in construction security, generative design, and other areas.
It goes without saying that the Covid-19 virus has upended our lives and industries around the world beyond most people’s imagination and not in a good way. Most people I speak with want 2020 to end, eager to herald the start of a new year and new beginnings.
Year in Infrastructure 2020 Executive Perspectives held on October 29th, 2020 with Greg Bentley and Satya Nadella featured discussions with the following executives:
Greg Bentley, CEO, Bentley Systems
Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
Nicholas Cumins, Chief Product Officer, Bentley Systems
Katriona Lord-Levins, Chief Success Officer, SVP, Bentley Systems
Chris Bradshaw, Chief Marketing Officer, Bentley Systems
To begin with, Greg Bentley spoke about the past year at Bentley Systems:
Greg Bentley, CEO, Bentley Systems
“This year has been about confluence of infrastructure and resilience. We have been a privately held company for 36 years and now publicly held. Those interested can view our investor relations website with all our performance listed there. BSY is the ticker symbol for Bentley on NASDAQ. Usage in our apps hit a trough earlier in the year yet returned to earlier levels by June. Infrastructure engineering is mission critical; professionals are able to be virtualized, advancement in going digital is greater this year as well as in 4D construction modeling. We’ll continue to see that grows every year as construction is about occupancy of space and time and that’s ever more important after a pandemic and forever.
800 Bentley colleagues are working on solutions with digital twins on perils we may not know and anticipate. Our own colleagues have been virtualized working at home, working on work-at-home for users as well.
Digital Twins for Infrastructure Resilience Infrastructure
Infrastructure resilience sustains our economy and environment. Infrastructure is advanced by infrastructure engineering and empowered by infrastructure engineering software, so we recognize our responsibility as an infrastructure engineering software company. For investors we inform them, break revenues down by end market. (more…)
