Bentley Systems and Microsoft Corp will be joining forces to focus on advancing infrastructure for smart city urban planning and smart construction
The alliance will combine Microsoft’s Azure IoT Digital Twins and Azure Maps with Bentley Systems’ iTwins platform, enabling engineers, architects, constructors and city planners to work within a comprehensive city-scale digital twin, empowering better decision-making, efficiency, reducing costs and improving collaboration.
The companies will explore opportunities for digital twins in urban planning and citizen engagement for cities around the world. The collaboration will enable improved decision-making and increased productivity through Microsoft Teams for infrastructure engineers.
In addition to sustaining infrastructure development in smart cities, project digital twins are facilitating industrial construction.
Bentley Systems was recognised by Microsoft as the 2020 MSUS Partner Award winner for the Industry-Automotive category, in which an automotive factory uses the HoloLens 2 with Bentley’s SYNCHRO 4D construction-modeling software.
Similarly, FC Barcelona, one of the oldest football clubs in Europe, is partnering with Bentley as part of the club’s renovation of Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium, the largest in Europe, currently under construction amid the pandemic.
Bringing digital twin advances to infrastructure
Greg Bentley, CEO, Bentley Systems, said: “At Bentley we believe that infrastructure digital twins can empower engineers, constructors and owner-operators to design, build and operate infrastructure assets that are more cost-effective, more resilient and more sustainable.
“With Azure as the foundation of our cloud services, our offerings are more broadly scaled and differentiated by the further integrations of Microsoft technologies.
“We are excited to extend our partnership to bring new digital twin advances to infrastructure engineering organisations and their constituents.”
“With Azure IoT, Azure Digital Twins and Bentley’s iTwins platform, the world’s infrastructure — vital to our economies and environment — stands to gain so much by enabling people to create comprehensive digital models of an entire environment,” said
Casey McGee, vice president partner development, US one commercial partner, Microsoft, said: “Our expanded strategic alliance with Bentley Systems opens up new opportunities for innovation and will accelerate the benefits of digital twins for infrastructure engineering organisations and, more broadly, society at large.”
Jamie Cudden, smart city program manager at Dublin City Council, said: “To overcome the challenges of getting public review and comment for new development projects in Dublin during the pandemic, we turned to Microsoft and Bentley to create an interactive virtual environment to ensure our citizens could provide their input from the safety of their homes and keep the development projects on track.”
William T. Mannarelli, director of Real Estate & Espai Barça, said: “Bentley has been working with FC Barcelona on the Espai Barça Project for over three years, helping the architects, the construction team and the club complete an extraordinary challenge — delivering a major renovation of the stadium while it continues to host matches.
“With Bentley’s SYNCHRO 4D construction-modelling software running on the Azure cloud, we can apply cutting-edge techniques to manage the complex and precise scheduling required to keep the stadium open during construction.”
