STRATEGIC INDUSTRY FORESIGHT

The Digitalization of Infrastructure

THE WORLD IS CHANGING. Today’s infrastructure is not only aging—the approach to planning, design, and constructing it is rapidly becoming out-of-date as well. This report is Autodesk’s business look forward for the future of the Infrastructure industry. A  complement to Constructing with the Power of Digital, it discusses how trends in technology are poised to deliver a profitable, resilient and agile industry, and a better built environment.

OVER THE NEXT 20 YEARS, population growth, urbanization, and economic  expansion are set to push demand for infrastructure to unprecedented
levels. If that alone wasn’t enough, trends in technology are changing the way
in which industry professionals, across all civil infrastructure sectors, plan, design, build, and maintain the world’s infrastructure. Innovation now is no longer optional. What hasn’t changed is constant concern for how to address risk and, of course, increase profits as the industry transforms.

This document provides the details on these disruptions but also the inspiration
for innovation. With the power of BIM, big data, cloud computing and analytics, we can now better tackle and answer the questions that need to be answered to solve our worlds $57 trillion infrastructure challenge. Going forward the role of infrastructure planners, designers and contractors fundamentally changes. Building the infrastructure right is no longer good enough. In this impending connected era, we now must answer the more important question: “Are
you building the right infrastructure in the first place?”

"Cities and their infrastructure must be designed where the inherent capability of these systems is to adapt and respond in ways it was not explicitly intended to do when first conceived."

TERRY D. BENNETT
LS LPF MRICS ENV SP LEED®AP
Senior Industry Strategist
Thought Leader, Civil Infrastructure
Autodesk Inc.