Amsterdam provided a fitting stage for Bentley Systems’ 2025 Year in Infrastructure (YII) and Going Digital Awards — a city that has mastered the art and science of living with water. Surrounded by canals, locks, and bridges, attendees explored a similar theme: how infrastructure, data, and technology can flow together to build a more connected, intelligent, and sustainable world.
This year’s event showcased Bentley’s clear direction toward an open, AI-driven, and geospatially aware future. Through a trio of major announcements — Bentley Infrastructure Cloud Connect, Infrastructure AI, and Cesium integration — the company showed how its platforms are connecting design, construction, and operations workflows.
Introducing the winners of Bentley Systems’ 2025 Going Digital Awards. Click image to enlarge. Image source Bentley Systems.
Bentley opened the event with Bentley Infrastructure Cloud Connect, a secure data environment that unites design models, sensor data, and documentation in one geospatially rich interface.
Designed to bring together design models, inspection data, IoT sensor inputs, and project documentation, Connect enables engineers, contractors, and owners to view and manage project and asset information in one geospatially rich interface.
“Infrastructure data lives everywhere — in models, PDFs, inspection forms, photos, IoT sensors, and more — and it’s rarely connected,” explained Julien Moutte, Bentley’s chief technology officer. “That changes with Bentley Infrastructure Cloud Connect.”
With Bentley Infrastructure Cloud Connect, teams can access and manage design, construction, and operations data in one connected environment. Click image to enlarge. Image source Bentley Systems.
Early adopters are already seeing results. Andy Kaiyala, vice president of Digital Construction Management at WSB, reported that the platform’s unified environment has allowed the company to share curated views of 72 projects with more than 900 external stakeholders from 86 organizations — saving millions in potential rework and improving decision-making across their project teams.
Built on Bentley’s iTwin platform, Cloud Connect supports 50+ formats and links ProjectWise and AssetWise for collaboration. General availability is planned for December 2025.
AI dominated YII 2025. This year, Bentley expanded its suite of AI-driven applications and introduced new initiatives to ensure that artificial intelligence in engineering remains trustworthy, contextual, and human-centered.
In fact, with this year’s Going Digital Awards submissions, Bentley reported that nearly one-third of all award submissions — and nearly half of the finalists — integrated AI into their workflows. From transportation to energy and utilities, the trend was unmistakable: firms are no longer experimenting with AI at the edges but embedding it deeply into project execution.
In conversations throughout the show, a common refrain emerged: AI is already reshaping engineering capacity. With the global shortage of engineers showing no signs of easing, automation and intelligent assistance are becoming critical to delivering the volume and complexity of projects ahead.
CEO Nicholas Cumins described Bentley’s approach: “AI is poised to transform infrastructure — but it should empower engineers, not replace them.” That theme — augmenting, not automating — was evident across product launches and presentations.
Bentley continued its focus on next-generation applications that incorporate AI directly into design, construction, and operations workflows. At last year’s conference, Bentley introduced OpenSite+, which leverages generative AI for civil site design, and is now in limited availability. Early users report OpenSite+ delivering projects up to 10 times faster without compromising accuracy.
At YII 2025, Bentley introduced two more AI-driven applications:
Bentley’s OpenSite+ uses generative AI to automate portions of civil site design, aiming to streamline workflows and improve accuracy. Image source Bentley Systems.
Each is connected through Bentley Infrastructure Cloud and incorporates Bentley Copilot, a new contextual assistant that guides users through design workflows and surfaces relevant documents or data.
AI is also finding its way into Bentley’s existing portfolio. Coming updates to OpenRoads Designer and OpenRail Designer will automate drawing annotation — a traditionally time-consuming task — while ProjectWise gains AI-powered search to summarize and retrieve project information instantly.
But Bentley isn’t charging into AI blindly. Cumins reaffirmed the company’s commitment to data stewardship multiple times during the event: users remain in full control of their data, deciding whether it can be used for AI training. The new Data Agreement Registry provides visibility into how data is used, underscoring Bentley’s transparency-first stance.
To push innovation further, Bentley launched the Infrastructure AI Co-Innovation Initiative, inviting users to collaborate on the next generation of AI-enhanced workflows. The effort will explore new API capabilities and business models that balance AI-driven and human-driven work — a recognition that the future of engineering will rely on both.
During the AI panel, experts from firms including Mott MacDonald and Turner & Townsend emphasized that successful use of AI in infrastructure begins with strong data foundations and traceable processes. One panelist noted that in such a high-risk industry, AI tools must produce verifiable and auditable results that engineers can confidently present to clients.
Another highlight of YII 2025 was Bentley’s continued integration with Cesium, the 3D geospatial platform it acquired last year. This move further connects Bentley’s digital twin vision with real-world context.
The latest update adds reality modeling services from iTwin Capture to Cesium ion, creating a seamless pipeline from data capture to cloud-hosted visualization. By the end of 2025, engineers will be able to generate photogrammetry, point clouds, and Gaussian splats from drone imagery, all automatically annotated by AI. These rich 3D tiles can be streamed directly into applications for immersive, real-time exploration.
New reality modeling services in Cesium combine imagery, point clouds, and AI-based feature detection to create detailed 3D context for infrastructure projects. Click image to enlarge. Image source Bentley Systems.
"Being able to generate photogrammetry, point clouds, and Gaussian splats as 3D Tiles from drone imagery and stream them seamlessly to the web is a major milestone,” said Osarodion Victory Igbinobaro, co-founder and CEO of AERO AI, a Cesium user.
The impact extends across Bentley’s ecosystem. MicroStation 2025 now supports Cesium’s 3D Tiles, allowing engineers and designers to overlay Google Photorealistic 3D data or their own reality meshes directly into their design projects. This can reduce the need to manually model existing site conditions — speeding up project setup and improving design accuracy.
Cesium’s capabilities are also central to Bentley Infrastructure Cloud Connect, giving users a geospatial view of projects and assets. Within this environment, teams can intuitively navigate between design, construction, and operations data — all visualized in 3D. These updates suggest a stronger integration between engineering-grade modeling and 3D geospatial visualization — an area increasingly relevant as firms seek to integrate design data with field and asset views.
iTwin Engage is a new application that lets infrastructure teams create immersive, narrative-driven experiences linked directly to live digital twins. Powered by Cesium and game engine technology, iTwin Engage enables stakeholders to explore project designs through interactive presentations, digital rehearsals, and even remote inspections — all automatically updated as design data evolves. iTwin Engage will be in limited availability by the end of 2025.
“The opportunity to present and communicate the project plan through iTwin Engage, in such an appealing manner, is fantastic,” said Simon Beards, principal planner at Laing O’Rourke, who participated in the early access program. “It supports a more collaborative way of engineering improvements.”
Together, these advancements reflect Bentley’s continued drive toward an open platform for the built and natural environment — a vision where every project, asset, and decision exists within its true spatial and contextual reality.
Voyants Solutions Private Ltd. won the Cities, Campuses, and Facilities category for its “Preparation of Masterplan, Detailed Design and Project Management of Atal Puram township, Agra, India. Click image to enlarge. Image source Bentley Systems.
No YII conference would be complete without the Going Digital Awards, Bentley’s annual celebration of its users and their excellence in infrastructure. With nearly 250 projects nominated by organizations in 47 countries. A panel of independent judges selected winners across 12 categories during the conference.
This year’s finalists demonstrated not only technical innovation but also a growing embrace of AI, digital twins, and data-centric delivery. See a list of all winners at the end of this article.
Founders’ Honors. During the event, Bentley also recognized 18 projects with Founders’ Honors. Chosen individually by Bentley’s founders, Founders’ Honors are presented to a small number of exemplary projects, individuals, and organizations that reflect the company’s mission of advancing the world’s infrastructure for better quality of life.
New Honors. Bentley also introduced two new honors this year:
Together, the winners highlight how digital collaboration and AI-enabled analysis are reshaping how infrastructure projects are designed and delivered worldwide.
Bentley’s award-winning customers offered a glimpse into that future — where open collaboration, data transparency, and simulation-based decision-making are becoming standard practice. Watch for an overview of these projects coming soon from Cadalyst.
YII also included panel discussions on the industry, such as cities, energy production, transportation, water, and more. Panellists were industry experts from all over the globe, giving examples, expressing concerns, and offering solutions. You can register to view these sessions, plus the keynote addresses online.
At the conference’s iLab, attendees explored the technologies shaping Bentley’s next chapter. Here, prototypes and interactive demos bridged the gap between concept and capability: AI-assisted design review tools, predictive maintenance models, and Cesium-powered reality twins that visualize data from subsurface to skyline.
In the iLab, Bentley emphasized openness — expanding APIs and interoperability with other platforms — as a key to future development. The iLab underscored Bentley’s commitment to collaboration across disciplines and data ecosystems, ensuring that the digital twin remains not just a model, but a living, evolving representation of infrastructure in context.
YII 2025 made it clear that Bentley’s digital transformation journey is accelerating. By connecting Cloud Connect, AI, and Cesium-powered reality modeling, the company is linking once-disparate layers of infrastructure data into a more connected ecosystem.
In Amsterdam — a city defined by its mastery of water and design — Bentley Systems demonstrated that the next frontier of infrastructure is about building smarter. The company’s focus on trustworthy AI, open integration, and immersive digital twins signals a future where engineers can make better decisions faster.
From connected data to intelligent design, Bentley’s latest innovations reaffirm a central truth of modern infrastructure: progress flows best when everything — and everyone — is connected.
Bridges and Tunnels: Italferr S.p.A. (Italy) – Leveraging Digital Technologies for Improved Infrastructure Management
Cities, Campuses, and Facilities: Voyants Solutions Private Ltd. (India) – Preparation of Masterplan, Detailed Design and Project Management of Atal Puram Township, Agra, India
Construction: Deloitte and Vale (Brazil) – SYNCHRO 4D Powering the World’s First Iron Ore Briquetting Plant
Energy Production: Baosteel Engineering & Technology Group Co., Ltd. (China) – Digital Intelligent Construction Project for a Steel Plant Based on Bentley Technology
Geospatial and Reality Modeling: Al Madinah Region Development Authority (MDA) (Saudi Arabia) – Manarah Urban Data Platform
Project Delivery: Egis (France) – Canal Seine Nord Europe
Rail and Transit: PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero) (Indonesia) – Smart Infrastructure by KAI & AssetWise Linear Analytics
Roads and Highways: Jabatan Kerja Raya Sarawak (JKRS) (Malaysia) – Sarawak Sabah Link Road Phase 2
Structural Engineering: AVS Engineers | ISID Architect, Nikhil Mahashur and Associates, Structural Engineer – Siddharth Sharma (India) – Fairmont Udaipur Palace
Subsurface Modeling and Analysis: Fervo Energy (United States) – Cape Station
Transmission and Distribution: China Energy Engineering Group Guangxi Electric Power Design Institute Co., Ltd. (China) – Application of GIS+BIM Digital Intelligence Technology to the Entire Lifecycle of China Southern Power Grid’s Guangxi Nanning 500kV Power Transmission and Transformation Project
Water and Wastewater: PT Wika Tirta Jaya Jatiluhur (WTJJ) (Indonesia) – SPAM Regional Jatiluhur I: Transforming Water for a Better Tomorrow
FAQ — Bentley YII 2025 HighlightsWhat is Bentley Infrastructure Cloud Connect?A new data layer that unifies design, construction, and operations information within Bentley’s Infrastructure Cloud. How is Bentley using AI in engineering?Through tools like OpenSite+, SYNCHRO+, and Bentley Copilot that apply generative and contextual AI to augment engineers’ work. Why is Cesium important to Bentley’s digital twins?Cesium provides real-world 3D context and cloud streaming of photogrammetry and point clouds for immersive visualization. What themes emerged from the 2025 Going Digital Awards?AI adoption, sustainability, and open collaboration across global infrastructure projects. How can AEC firms benefit from these advances?By integrating connected data platforms and AI tools to reduce rework, improve accuracy, and accelerate delivery. |
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