Techitup ME speaks to Zubran Solaiman, Director Industry Strategy Cities, at Bentley Systems as he discusses the challenges and innovations in creating smart and sustainable cities and shares insights around climate change impact, skill gaps in infrastructure, AEC industry, digital twins and AI, and real-world case studies
The idea of smart and sustainable cities is exciting, but they come with their own set of challenges, can you elaborate on these challenges?
Climate change has become one of the biggest challenges faced by cities across the world. Natural disasters such as the wildfires in LA, flash floods in Dubai, and heat waves in Kuwait, are recent examples of how adversely climate change is impacting our physical environment. These events are now becoming more common, highlighting the need for enhanced climate adaptation and resilience in urban development. In this context, resilience refers to the capacity of cities, organizations and businesses to not only survive but also to adapt and develop in the face of key challenges that might come their way.
In response to these issues, the United Arab Emirates invested USD 8 billion to increase the city’s drainage capacity by 700 percent and prepare their systems for similar challenges in the future.
Similar trends that are emerging in urban development globally include optimizing and reshaping urban spaces, addressing aging infrastructure, improving security and resilience, and increasing transparency and collaboration. These trends highlight the growing awareness of climate-related challenges and the need for comprehensive urban development solutions.
To better understand the challenges that cities face, we can group them into three categories. The first of which is ‘multi-sector collaboration and coordination’, which highlights how cities should manage multiple dimensions such as water, transport, energy and numerous other sectors, while coordinating essential capital projects across the supply chain.
The second is that, when it comes to revealing key data and driving social participation, cities should embrace visibility, inclusivity and democratizing data. For instance, the expansive data pertaining to a city’s operations, are often not accessible or lack context making it difficult for key stakeholders such as first responders, insurance companies and legal professionals to making meaningful decisions. Since such data is often highly technical in nature, it is vital to ensure that it is accessible, understood and applicable for all parties involved in the decision-making process.
The third category deals with financial justification and productivity. Presently, cities are exploring innovative financial models, such as insurance-backed resilience programs that provide quick payouts during crises. However, problems arise when it comes to large-scale investments, particularly when projects need to support the demand and capacity for the next century.
Moreover, the global demand for resilient infrastructure is surging, as cities strive to expand energy grids, modernize transportation systems, and retrofit existing structures to meet sustainable development goals. These massive undertakings require trillions in investment and decades of effort. In addition, there are not enough skilled engineers to carry out these important projects, leading to the need for advanced technologies like AI that can offset mundane tasks, allowing engineers to focus on higher-value activities.
Dubai stands as a shining example in this regard, with the Emirate investing USD 8 billion to increase the city’s drainage capacity by 700 per cent, in response to unanticipated rainfall and floods. In order to tackle key issues, the wise leadership has implemented several strategic initiatives, preparing public systems for similar challenges that might arise in the future.
Let’s also talk about the skill gap, how can cities and countries solve this challenge?
Within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, we see an evident issue of skill gap on a global scale. To address this pressing concern impacting the urban development and engineering landscape, several grassroot-level initiatives are being implemented across the globe.
For instance, the UK-based organization ‘Class of Their Own’, which we have partnered with, provides construction, engineering and design training to high school students. Such programs empower students to enter the workforce with practical, ready-to-use skills, minimizing the need for extensive on-the-job training.
During the ‘Class of Their Own’ sessions, we asked students to create a digital twin of an entire village, which they were able to complete within just a day, through proper guidance. Not only did the participants master the task, but they also effectively communicated the benefits of digital twin to village residents, showcasing both their technical aptitude and communication skills.
Similarly, integrating AI for design and engineering through partnerships with academic institutions can help address the existing skill gap. For instance, our collaborations with premier institutions such as Ireland’s Dublin City University and Lithuania’s Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) are effectively addressing future skill gaps while leveraging the universities’ intellectual capital to enhance product capabilities. Furthermore, these universities use various tools to develop innovative solutions, which can then be used in urban development to foster a cycle of practical learning and real-world application.
Can you share a real-time case study where Bentley System’s technology was used to help solve a particular pain area?
Looking beyond Digital Twin, our projects can be divided into key segments addressing the concerns of multi-sector coordination and collaboration, data, and social inclusivity, as well as financial justification and productivity.
The Diriyah Gate Project in Riyadh by Keo Consultants, which utilized our advanced tools, falls under the ‘multi-sector coordination and collaboration’ category. The project aimed to transform the historic city of Diriyah into a leading cultural heritage hub ahead of the ‘World Expo 2020’, without interrupting public transportation. By leveraging Bentley System’s cutting-edge tools, they implemented a construction simulation to evaluate the impact of these changes.
The project was an immense success and attained a 66 per cent reduction in logistics trips, reducing carbon emissions and fuel consumption. Through the use of simulation tools, they were able to make well-informed infrastructure decisions. For instance, they determined that the proposed temporary bridge costing USD 2 million was not required, ultimately mitigating approximately 300 days of potential delay.
The Dublin Fire Brigade project, which achieved effective data accessibility improvements using our tools, falls under the second category of democratizing data. The project empowered first responders to spend 80 per cent of their time on pre-incident planning, significantly improving emergency preparedness.
Singapore Land Authority also utilized our solutions to efficiently share its comprehensive data collection with sister institutions. This helped increase their data availability by 50 per cent across organizations, while eliminating redundant data capture efforts.
Addressing the concerns that fall under the third category, we provided our advanced tools to the city of Cairo, to conduct a comprehensive mobility assessment of public transportation, in line with Cairo’s ‘2030 Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs). The project integrated multiple data sources, including census data, mobility information and network traffic data to create a multimodal transportation model encompassing buses, mini-buses and metro trains. This complex analysis also helped better justify the necessary investments for improving transportation in the region.
Furthermore, our collaboration with the city of Texas aimed for productivity enhancement, wherein AI automation was achieved through products such as ‘Blyncsy’, efficiently identifying key infrastructure assets. Moreover, using dashcam footage, the system automatically identifies assets, detects defects and utilizes this information for capital investment planning.
What innovations are shaping the industry, when it comes to the creation of smart and sustainable cities?
As an industry strategist, I monitor industry trends, identify solutions, and provide feedback to Bentley Systems on necessary developments and gaps in the market. Recently, I came across several key innovations that are gaining traction in the market.
One of the most notable trends in this regard is the emergence of ‘Geospatial 2.0’, a term coined by Matt Shannon. It moves beyond static data and isolated analysis to embrace real-time data collection and analysis and collaboration, leveraging cutting edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) to provide real-time insights for geo-aware decision-making.
Our asset analytics capabilities from Blyncsy, are an indication that we are listening to the market. It significantly reduces the time and cost to both captures, analyse and classify assets and defects in dense urban infrastructure. Similarly, our acquisition of Cesium bolstered by significant strategic partnership with Google helps in facilitating efficient streaming of analytics and information to various stakeholders, further boosting data accessibility and utilization.
Yet another important innovation is the emergence of data governance and ontology, which deals with understanding how various datasets relate to one another and establishing proper governance frameworks to manage these relationships effectively. Similarly, AI agents are significantly reducing workload by actively executing design tasks and similar operations.
With regards to Digital Twin, there are typically two philosophical approaches in creating a Digital Twin. They can typically take a data-centric approach or a pragmatic approach. Both approaches have pros and cons.
In the data-centric approach, organizations focus primarily on ensuring the correct data taxonomy and ontology before deploying a fully functional Digital Twin. The quality of data is much higher but can take a longer duration to attain a significant ROI. While in the second approach, a more practical and visualization-focused method is leveraged by making data visible and easily understandable, with less prioritization on data quality. The data quality is progressively improved over time, but organizations can attain a faster ROI while taking key stakeholders along the Digital Twin journey.
Can you elaborate on the role of AI powered digital twins in building smart and sustainable cities? What will future cities look like?
Due to the sheer volume of data created within the infrastructure domain across various processes like design and maintenance, AI holds the potential to transform this sector. In line with this, we have been investing in AI for several years now, with a focus on diverse domains ranging from asset operations to road maintenance. Moreover, Bentley Systems has introduced OpenSite+, the first engineering application leveraging generative AI for civil site design. The tool enables engineers to swiftly and accurately design residential, commercial and industrial sites, significantly boosting productivity and accuracy.
Presently, within the AI market, there is an increased focus on generative AI and large language modelling, which are driven by rule-based analysis, as exemplified by innovations OpenSite+. Such advanced tools can even analyse public policies in a specific area and determine construction possibilities, such as whether a car park can be constructed in a particular location. It can also analyse policy documents, provide engineering design recommendations and references.
OpenSite+ also features AI agents that work on behalf of organizations to perform specific tasks. For instance, in reactive design processes, engineers might have to create and repeatedly alter designs. This process can be automated through AI agents, so that when changes occur, the system seamlessly analyses organizational policies, styles and symbology to automatically create 2D design drawings; allowing engineers to do engineering work and let the AI do the drafting work.
Present trends indicate that AI agents will become much more common in the future, wherein they will actively execute tasks, rather than merely providing suggestions. This transition can positively redefine urban planning by integrating diverse datasets into unified platforms. It is critical to enhance the accessibility of such datasets to leverage the full potential of AI, as we usher in a tech-centric future.
