Tomas Kellner

Key takeaways
  1. Europe faces €12 trillion in infrastructure investment needs by 2040.
  2. Fragmented handovers prevent capturing digital value.
  3. AI amplifies existing practices: good data in, good results out.
A long-exposure photo of a modern bridge at night shows light trails from traffic, illuminated streetlights, and a city skyline in the background under a partly cloudy sky.
The iconic Van Brienenoord Bridge over the Muse highway A16 in Rotterdam.

At the Bentley Systems Illuminate Berlin 2026 conference, infrastructure engineers and technology leaders met to confront a massive infrastructure challenge already visible in the numbers: Europe faces €12 trillion in infrastructure investment needs by 2040.

Independent research and advisory firm Verdantix, which covers industrial and infrastructure technology, attended the event and characterized it as a significant moment for the infrastructure sector, underscoring the urgent challenges facing the industry. In a report following the conference, Verdantix analysts Sophie Planken-Bichler and Annemarie Briggs highlighted that fragmented data—including information lost at handover, siloed across disciplines, and underused in operations—remains the industry's most consequential unsolved problem.

"The overarching message was clear: The sector is not heading towards a sudden breaking point, but a slow, predictable crisis that leaders can already quantify but are struggling to address," the analysts wrote. "Mounting pressure from aging assets, climate stress, and growing system complexity is converging, stretching infrastructure built in the mid‑20th century far beyond its intended lifespan."

Verdantix also highlighted the importance of themes woven throughout the conference: connected data, open standards and interoperability, and artificial intelligence (AI). The firm noted that digital twins are moving beyond design into operations, with projects such as China's Tianshan Shengli Tunnel and the Netherlands' A16 motorway demonstrating how digital twins, subsurface intelligence, and lifecycle data reduce risk before construction begins and feed operational insight back into future design decisions.

Regarding AI, the Verdantix analysts struck a cautionary note: Technology is accelerating productivity in planning and risk analytics, but it amplifies weak data governance just as readily as strong practice. It must be guided by experienced engineers rather than treated as a substitute for domain expertise, the firm argued.

On connected data, Verdantix said the persistent failure is carrying digital value through handover into construction and operations. "Platforms such as ProjectWise are becoming critical coordination layers," Verdantix said. "Large-scale programs such as Poland's Port Polska illustrate both the opportunity and the challenge: standardized BIM requirements and CDEs can enable a single source of truth, but scale, access control, and configuration remain significant hurdles in practice."

Ultimately, Verdantix's observations from Illuminate Berlin 2026 underscore that proactive strategies focused on intelligent data management and advanced technologies are indispensable for confronting the complex challenges facing global infrastructure today and in the future.

Read the full Verdantix post.