In this BSA series – “Why AI?” – enterprise software leaders explain in their own words how artificial intelligence (AI) is having a positive impact on individuals, businesses, and organizations worldwide. In this submission, Bentley Systems Chief Technology Officer Julien Moutte writes about how generative AI for design will assist engineers with the implementation of technology like digital twins.
1. Why AI?
With post-COVID investments in infrastructure and net-zero pathways, the demand for engineering services has never been higher. There is more work than engineering services firms can handle and backlogs are getting longer. However, workforces are aging and firms can’t hire fast enough. There are simply not enough engineers graduating from college. Engineering services firms are looking for ways to close their capacity and skills gaps and are turning to AI-driven solutions for automation and reuse that relieve engineers of the many mundane tasks that undermine their productivity. Generative design and generative components have already proven their worth. Now, generative AI for design has the potential to help even more. Our product vision for generative AI for design is shaped by the belief that AI will assist rather than replace engineers. AI agents will generate concepts and design alternatives, and also provide in-product feedback on design work-in-progress.
2. Can you give an example?
AI is not new to Bentley. AI has been part of our product capabilities for some years now, in particular in use cases related to computer vision for object identification and classification. A great example of that is our Bridge Monitoring solution. AI is used to automatically identify defects such as cracks and spalling. We are going to see more of this type of application in operations and maintenance, for bridges, dams, and other critical infrastructure. The great thing about these solutions is that they are helping to close that capacity and skills gap we were talking about.
One thing we’ve learned is that for AI, you need data. All engineering services firms are beginning to realize how valuable their data is. But rather than using the proprietary data of engineering services firms to train AI models that may benefit others, we believe your data is always your data, and no one else should have access to it.
Of course, the best way to manage and make sense of infrastructure engineering data is by creating digital twins. The good news is that adoption of digital twins has been significantly increasing in the infrastructure sector over the last few years. Bentley’s iTwin technology stack and iTwin products were architected from the ground up to enable the endless ways that AI may be applied.
3. Where can we learn more?
We believe AI is at a watershed moment for the infrastructure sector, including the design phase of the infrastructure lifecycle. There is so much value to be derived from AI-driven automation and reuse. We envisage an expanding range of AI-driven capabilities to assist infrastructure engineers including generating design alternatives that are optimized for specified outcomes, e.g., cost or carbon. You can expect to see more AI-driven features appearing in our products at an accelerating pace.
To learn more about Bentley’s Bridge Monitoring solution and how it leverages the latest advancements in AI to reduce bridge rehabilitation costs by 20%, visit: https://www.bentley.com/software/bridge-monitoring/
About the author:
Julien Moutte is the chief technology officer of Bentley Systems, Inc., the infrastructure engineering software company, and is the principal architect of the company’s technology directions. Bentley’s mission is to help people design, build, and operate better infrastructure.
