Revolutionizing the built world to shape smarter living

Virtualization is not about digitizing what already exists; it’s about modeling what’s possible. It’s a new way to explore and collaborate to make better choices to improve the lives of every citizen on Earth. The Infrastructure & Cities sector is embracing virtual twins to address challenges ranging from finding and mining new materials to powering cities with renewable energy to reimagining infrastructure. Combining operational and environmental data in a unified platform lets stakeholders manage data complexity, visualize project goals, ensure compliance with health & safety regulations, predict maintenance and track infrastructure performance. Success can include mitigating construction risks, safely meeting global demand for better power grids and optimizing supply chain logistics. It’s through solutions like virtual twins that we’ll revolutionize approaches to the built world to create better living for all.

Reinvent how you operate today to deliver a better tomorrow. This is the message of five young experts, The Infrastructors, addressing Infrastructure & Cities organizations grappling with transformational challenges triggered by rapid urbanization, continuous economic development, a growing skills gap and the urgent need for climate resilience. Meeting these challenges requires creative and scalable approaches to create sustainable urban environments for future generations.
 

A giant ball of clean energy

Just as young kids need extra energy to fuel their growth, our planet will need a surge of sustainable power to support its own development. Some estimates show that by 2050, demand for electricity could be up to 150% higher than it was in 2022. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to the global clean energy transition. Different territories will adopt energy systems suited to local circumstances and capabilities.
 

Achieving sustainable logistics

Kids love playing with toy trains and trucks, but logistics is serious business. If transportation infrastructure is the circulatory system of the global economy, then logistics – and in particular, freight transportation – is the blood: it is the indispensable medium to carry goods around the world. Achieving effective logistics and supply chain operations management is possible with virtual twins. They can provide a fully integrated view of planning and scheduling requirements across all time horizons in a way that also accounts for a dynamic regulatory landscape. Virtualtwins can also help with testing and validating rail operations. Their powerful, end-to-end simulation capabilities have tremendous power to precisely show how activities will function in reality, including day-to-day maintenance and operations, while also meeting quality and regulatory standards.
 

The skyline’s the limit

Most kids born today will grow up to be city dwellers. Today, over half of the world’s population lives in cities. By 2050, that figure is estimated to be 68%. Our cities aren’t just getting more populous and more complex; they’re increasingly vulnerable to climate change effects. But they’re also part of the problem: 75% of all greenhouse gas emissions derive from cities. Urban leaders, therefore, must make cities both resilient and sustainable, a balance that finds them increasingly turning to technology. Virtual modeling and simulation offer city leaders opportunities to leverage up-to-date data to test and iterate policies in the virtual world. This minimises risk in the real world, ensuring budget and resource allocations go to projects that will make a lasting difference to citizens’ lives.
 

Out with the old

Kids shouldn’t have to worry about growing old – but they might need to be concerned about the built environment surrounding them. That’s because infrastructure across the world is ageing or otherwise inadequate for society’s needs. Simply put, global infrastructure needs an upgrade. Whether that means maintaining old infrastructure or delivering new projects comes with a cost: current studies project as much as a $15 trillion gap between global infrastructure needs and spending through 2030. Many investors are put off by the risk and complexity of infrastructure projects. Digital technology can help de-risk these projects and make the financial case for infrastructure delivery.
 

Inside productization

There’s a big difference between making a house with toy building blocks and a real-world construction project. Or is there? Traditional construction processes have long been highly fragmented, involving multiple stakeholders across the lifecycle of a typical project. Delivering projects at the best of times while navigating strategic challenges – from the global skill shortage to rising material and labour costs to ever-evolving ESG regulations – is a huge task. Digital transformation in construction is finally happening. At the vanguard of this revolution is productization, which aims to transform construction elements from static, bespoke objects into generative assets, allowing for more convenient, cost-effective and flexible approaches.
 

The significance of wind energy in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions cannot be overstated. However, the persistent challenge of noise, particularly the bothersome swishing sound associated with onshore wind turbines, poses a significant obstacle. Stringent noise regulations have been a limiting factor, constraining turbine operation, diminishing power output and inflating production costs. The adoption of larger rotor diameters in wind turbine designs has introduced its own set of challenges, coupled with increased prototyping costs. The presence of aerodynamic noise, influenced by factors such as rotational speed and the intricate design of turbine blades, further exacerbates community disturbances. 

In response to these challenges, a collaborative effort between LM Wind Power and Dassault Systèmes is pioneering a simulation methodology to design optimal blade serrations specifically geared towards reducing trailing-edge noise in full-scale wind turbines. This innovative approach bypasses the need for resource-intensive and expensive wind tunnel and field tests.

Crucially, the efficacy of this solution has undergone extensive validation through rigorous field tests.

Envision Energy uses DELMIA Quintiq to build complex supply chain networks through digital models and harness powerful analytics and simulation capabilities to mitigate disruptions. Planners gain a clear view of the end-to-end supply chain to support decision-making and finalise sales and operations planning within a day, instead of five. In the same timeframe, they can also confirm supply availability for new sales and projects.

By optimizing its supply chain network, Envision has achieved impressive business benefits, including increased efficiency, faster order completion and delivery rates and significantly reduced logistics, production and inventory costs. The sheer size of the parts Envision Energy manufactures typically means they are expensive to transport. Having better visibility of its complex supply chain network has helped the company plan ahead and choose more economic options.

The current model of public transport service delivery is fundamentally broken. That’s the view of Tommaso Gecchelin, founder and chief technology officer at NExT, an Italian startup developing an advanced intelligent transport system based on swarms of modular electric vehicles. 

“We often see buses running totally empty,” Gecchelin said. “It’s a normal scenario in every big city because public transportation vehicles are sized based on the maximum capacity but are unable to adapt to varying demand throughout the day.” 

NExT’s vehicles solve this problem. During peak hours, they can start their journey with five or more pods that dynamically connect using a robotic system to create a single vehicle with no articulation. Depending on the number of pods, NExT’s capacity can match an 18-meter bus or even a tram. During low-traffic hours, NExT can run in a lighter configuration with one, two or three pods, keeping the others parked and charging ahead of the next peak period.

NExT’s zero-emission vehicles are a sustainable smart urban mobility solution. They use up to60% less electricity than standard electric buses because they run only with the minimum necessary number of pods to accommodate demand.

“The operational pods use much less energy, not only due to being lighter but also because the space occupied by passengers that needs to be cooled or warmed depending on the season is only a fraction of a traditional fixed capacity bus,” Gecchelin said. “Moreover, the possibility of reducing the length and volume of the bus allows for a general reduction of road traffic.”

NExT requires industry-leading tools to design, test and optimize a bus that is expected to transform urban mobility. That’s why it is taking advantage of Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE for Startups offer, which provides it with a best-of-breed portfolio of solutions, including CATIA for design.

Expanding smart cities and infrastructure with new capabilities

NExT has made significant developments with its smart mobility solutions. It has now designed and manufactured nine prototype vehicles, which are currently being tested in Dubai and in the company’s headquarters in Padua. Mass production is expected to begin in 2025, with an initial 30 vehicles rolled out in the first year, and a further 100 vehicles hitting the streets in 2026.

 On the way, the modular vehicle will be able to dock with others that are going to the same place. Once passengers have moved within NExT’s modules headed to the same place, those left free will be able to detach to meet other customers in a system that allows door-to-door dynamics.”

NExT could also be used in countless other applications, including retail and on-the-moveservices, healthcare, security, cargo transport and airport services. Once infrastructure allows,the transport solutions will be able to operate completely autonomously.

A fix for construction

According to reports from Freddie Mac, the US is almost four million houses short of the demand from potential homebuyers. The traditional approach to construction is no longer fit for purpose. And while a new wave of companies offering modular construction – where buildings are prefabricated in a factory – promises a solution in the form of cheaper and faster processes, Andrew Staniforth, chief executive officer at Assembly OSM, believes the approach is still falling short.

Learning from industry pioneers

Assembly OSM draws inspiration from the way that leading automotive and aerospace firms operate. Buildings are designed by Assembly OSM as a 3D virtual twin, components are manufactured by the company’s supply chain and products are assembled by Assembly OSM and “stacked” on the jobsite by the company’s general contractor partners.

Going beyond productization

“While we are productizing the process, we are using CATIA to achieve more customization,” Staniforth said. “With typical productization, you have a discrete set of options, but what we’re doing is building a much more continuous spectrum of options that you can do parametrically. “Overall, the 3DEXPERIENCE platform solves some very specific problems for us, and I would say it’s foundational to the way we operate – in terms of the way we work with suppliers and the way we’re managing products,” Staniforth said. “It’s very tightly integrated with our business model – in fact, I think it’s almost inseparable from it. It has unlocked the resiliency and the customizability that typically has not been allowed in modular construction before.”

Building responsibly

“The built environment is responsible for 40% of carbon emissions, so we really do believe that it’s our responsibility to build better,” Staniforth said. “The tools within the 3DEXPERIENCE platform allow us to create a high-fidelity bill of materials for every building we create. We can then understand those materials and quantify their impact on the environment at a very early stage. We intend to scale quite quickly in different markets. That means the team will grow– and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform will grow with us too.”

Launched in 2023 and supported by the French government department agency ADEME, SmartFabrik proposes a new approach to building and renovating. At the heart of the project lies the creation of a marketplace, a digital knowledge and know-how sharing platform, purpose-built to industrialize building design and delivery. This marketplace offers “virtual bricks”– digital pre-designed, customizable and eco-engineered construction systems. Each virtual brick encapsulates code regulations, engineering rules and the specialized expertise of its creator, whether it’s Bouygues Construction, Piveteaubois or France Préfa Concept. Each brick can be easily configured and assembled to create unique buildings while standardizing over60% of components, leading to faster, more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly construction. A dedicated configurator allows project managers, developers, architects, engineers and contractors to integrate virtual bricks into projects and automatically generate deliverables for each stage. The marketplace offers virtual brick developers accelerated engineering workflows, streamlined paths to manufacturing, IP protection, access to new markets and recurring revenue opportunities. For project managers, it means faster design cycles, reduced risks, lower costs and predictable, high-quality outcomes.

This initiative reinforces Dassault Systèmes’ strategic role in digitizing and industrializing the construction sector. By enabling a shift from fragmented practices to a platform-based, collaborative and sustainable model, we’re shaping the future of building – smarter, cleaner and faster.