Building Intelligence: The Next Frontier of AI for Cities and Infrastructure

As artificial intelligence reshapes every industry, the built environment presents some of its most difficult and consequential challenges. Today's AI can generate designs, write software, and analyse vast quantities of information, yet it still struggles with engineering truth, physical constraints, fragmented data, and the complexity of real-world infrastructure systems. This session explores the next frontier of AI and the technologies that may overcome these limitations. Drawing on Bentley's work in infrastructure digital twins and trusted engineering data, alongside pioneering research at ETH Zürich in computational design, robotics, fabrication, simulation, and human-AI collaboration, we will examine how AI is evolving from a predictive tool into an infrastructure intelligence layer. The future lies not in AI alone, but in the convergence of AI, digital twins, cloud and edge computing, simulation, and continuous sensing, creating systems that help us design better cities, build more sustainably, operate more resilient infrastructure, and make better decisions for both the built and natural environment.