The product strategy of infrastructure engineering software developer Bentley Systems is grounded in the principle that the infrastructure sector needs to do more with less, said Bentley Systems COO Nick Cumins on Tuesday during the plenary of the 2022 Year in Infrastructure Conference.

The global drive to half carbon emissions by 2030 is placing the infrastructure sector under significant pressure, and the decisions that are made today will have real consequences for decades, he highlighted ahead of the 2022 Going Digital Awards in Infrastructure, hosted at the Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel, in London, UK.

Across 12 categories, 36 finalists, which demonstrated excellence and digital advancements in their respective award category, presented their projects to an independent panel of jurors on Monday, highlighting how the application of Bentley System’s software solutions, such as infrastructure construction management software SYNCHRO, helped to reduce capital expenditure and accelerate project delivery, among other benefits.

Projects based in Asia won four of the 12 categories awarded on Tuesday evening.

PowerChina Hubei Electric Engineering took first place in the Grid category for its full lifecycle digital application in its Wuhan Xudong 220 kV substation project, in China, while engineering and construction company PT Wijaya Karya won the Rail and Transit category for its integrated solution for the 143 km high-speed railway line between Jakarta and Bandung, in Indonesia, which saved $185-million in construction costs and shortened the construction schedule by six months.

The winning project in the Surveying and Monitoring category belonged to the Singapore Land Authority, while Singapore’s national water agency, PUB, and international technical professional services firm Jacobs won the Water and Wastewater category for the Tuas Water Reclamation Plant.

The UK walked away with three category wins, with global engineering, management, and development consultants Mott MacDonald winning the Enterprise Engineering category for its Smart Object Library for nondepartmental public body The Environment Agency and the Geoprofessional category for driving efficiency and sustainability in material reuse through  an integrated geospatial and building information modelling solution for the development of the 90-km HS2 Phase 1 high-speed rail route between London and Birmingham.

Also in the UK, engineering professional services consulting firm WSP took top spot in the Structural Engineering category for optimising the design of Unity Place, the new headquarters for Santander Bank, in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.

US-based projects won the Bridges and Tunnels, and Process and Power Generation categories. Construction companies Ferrovial Construction and Alamo Nex Construction won for their IH35 Nex Central Station project, in San Antonio, Texas, and multinational oil and gas company Shell’s Projects & Technology organisation, in Houston, for its deepwater project delivery digital platform for a portfolio of projects in the Gulf of Mexico.

Australia-based projects also won two categories, with sustainable infrastructure solutions provider Acciona winning the Construction category for safely removing dangerous level crossings in Melbourne through digital technology. Sydney Airport, in New South Wales, won the Facilities, Campuses and Cities category for its Maps@SYD project in which it developed a cloud-based, self-service portal to support facilities planning and operations by integrating spatial and survey information, and making it accessible to all staff across the organisation.

In the Roads and Highways category, independent advisory, design and engineering consultancy Beca took top honours for establishing a connected data environment and digital twin that will simplify construction of the Takitimu North Link project in the constrained location, in Tauranga, Western Bay of Plenty, in New Zealand.

Countries were investing in infrastructure to support economic recovery, to ensure energy security and address climate change, said Cumins.

Simultaneously, however, those responsible for delivering infrastructure solutions, were facing a talent shortage while the skill set required to deliver infrastructure was changing, he noted.

“In the last three months, more than half of the engineering firms in the US had to turn down jobs because of workforce shortages. Helping you bridge that gap between increasing expectations and the limited capacity at hand is a key focus of what we are doing at Bentley.”