SHAPING THE FUTURE OF INFRASTRUCTURE
YEAR IN INFRASTRUCTURE 2025
How Bentley is shaping the future of infrastructure
Bentley Systems’ annual Year in Infrastructure (YII) and Going Digital awards event took place in Amsterdam 15-16 October 2025. Celebrating the best of infrastructure during the 750th anniversary of Amsterdam and behind a theme of ‘shaping the future of infrastructure’, Bentley CEO Nicholas Cumins made it explicitly clear that user data belongs with the user. While other vendors may train their AI tools on user data, Bentley prides itself on not doing so without express permission.
That said, Bentley is not against working with its users to develop intuitive AI tools, quite the opposite, the company is progressively working with its users to advance AI capabilities. When asked why Bentley isn’t training its AI tools on user data without permission, Cumins commented: “It simply isn’t right, it’s not the right thing to do.
Our users are in control of their data. They decide if it is used for AI training and to what extent.
Our users are in control of their data. They decide if it is used for AI training and to what extent.” Expanding on this, Bentley also announced an infrastructure AI co-innovation initiative, inviting engineering firms and asset owners to collaborate on the next generation of AI workflows.
To connect data and people across the infrastructure lifecycle, Bentley announced in Amsterdam the launch of Bentley Infrastructure Cloud Connect, the new foundational layer of Bentley Infrastructure Cloud. Connect provides a connected data environment and unified experience for infrastructure professionals interacting with project and asset data, improving collaboration.
Users are able to view their entire global portfolio in full geospatial context – powered by Bentley’s Cesium 3D geospatial capabilities – analyse project and asset details and collaborate, track progress and identify issues – all in one environment. A dedicated mobile app also enables users to stay connected to project or maintenance workflows.
Bentley Systems CEO Nicholas Cumin speaks during the main keynote at YII 2025.
Open applications
The infrastructure industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. Demand for new roads, bridges, water systems and utilities is growing faster than engineers can design and build them. Bentley Systems’ next generation of open applications – starting with OpenSite+ for civil site design and OpenUtilities Substation+ for electric substations – are purpose-built to address this engineering capacity gap. Representing a step change in self-serve functionality, both applications are fully integrated with Bentley’s Copilot – context-aware AI assistant – from the outset.
OpenSite+ enables site engineers to work dramatically faster by automating tedious tasks. The software delivers projects up to 10x faster without sacrificing accuracy, giving teams more time to refine designs and improve quality. It’s data-centric, digital twin-native and AI-powered, with integrated drainage design and automated drawing production.
OpenUtilities Substation+ is a new intelligent, cloud-connected solution designed to modernise how substations are designed, built and maintained in a digitised world. Utilities can use intelligent 3D modelling, AI-enabled design assistance and collaborative workflows to ensure their aging infrastructure can meet today’s demands.
Advancing its open platform for the built and natural environment, Bentley has introduced reality modelling capabilities in Cesium – the company it acquired in 2024. Adding the reality modelling functionality of iTwin Capture to Cesium ion, it allows the user to create detailed 3D visualisations – reality meshes, point clouds and Gaussian splats – directly from imagery, annotated by AI, ready to stream within applications using open standards. Creating an accurate, engineering-grade digital model of the existing built and natural environment and offering it as rich 3D geospatial context allows infrastructure professionals to make better informed decisions throughout the infrastructure lifecycle.
For engineers and architects who live inside CAD files, visualisation has long been a necessity. For everyone else, from contractors to community stakeholders, getting an accurate and up-to-date model of a new project destined for their community has often been out of reach. Bentley’s new iTwin Engage is designed to solve that problem, making digital twins accessible in real time, on demand and without the painstaking model optimisation that could add days to the schedule. By using iTwin Engage, projects like bridges, tunnels and power plants aren’t just drawings on paper or models on a screen – they’re full, real-time immersive experiences. One of the revolutionary aspects of iTwin Engage is that it invites non-engineers into the process. This enveloping way of communicating project scopes, allows teams and stakeholders a way to see, share and make decisions with the clarity of standing inside the future they’re building. Delegates to YII got to see iTwin Engage in operation in the iLab and it is an incredible experience.
Conducted by Bentley in collaboration with law firm Pinsent Masons, engineering firm Mott MacDonald and consultancy Turner & Townsend, a global survey of infrastructure professionals released at the conference found that about half of respondents are either piloting AI or have already implemented it, with plans to scale its use across their organisations. Key focus areas include boosting design and engineering productivity and automating documentation processes. A panel of experts in Amsterdam, chaired by CICES fellow Mark Coates, VP infrastructure policy advancement at Bentley, discussed the main findings of the survey. As infrastructure organisations adopt AI tools, data security and intellectual property protection remain critical concerns. To combat this, Bentley has made the ethical decision to safeguard its software users’ intellectual property.
Each year, Bentley honours leading infrastructure organisations with the Going Digital awards, recognising excellence in project delivery and asset performance through digital innovation. This year, nearly one-third of award submissions – and almost half of finalists – incorporated AI into their projects. The closing awards dinner showcased the advancements in infrastructure projects on a global scale.
Help shape the future of AI in infrastructure by joining the infrastructure AI co-innovation initiative at infrastructure.ai.
Get involved and help steer the next generation of substation design by joining the OpenUtilitiesSubstation+ Early Access Program at bentley.com/software/substation-plus