When Hurricane Sandy struck New York in 2012, nature exposed the fragility of one of the world's greatest cities. Power stations flooded. Critical infrastructure failed. Entire neighborhoods were left vulnerable as a storm surge overwhelmed systems designed for a different era. The disaster went on for weeks and cost billions of dollars. It forced city leaders to confront a difficult reality: the future would bring more uncertainty, more extreme weather, and greater pressure on infrastructure.

The result was the Big U, an ambitious flood-protection system that wrapped around Lower Manhattan. In the latest episode of the Bentley Horizons podcast, we discover that the story of the Big U is about much more than flood walls; it’s about the way resilient infrastructure is being conceived, designed, built, and operated.

It is a story about how architects and engineers are demanding more holistic systems thinking from their software providers, as they design infrastructure for a changing planet.

Recorded at the Architect Network (ATN) Summit in London, the episode brings together architects, engineers, technologists, and innovators grappling with a common challenge: how to design resilient infrastructure in an age defined by climate change and artificial intelligence. What emerged from those conversations was a surprisingly consistent message.

The future belongs to connected systems.

Across the built environment, professionals are pushing back against fragmented workflows, disconnected software, and isolated data silos. They want information to flow seamlessly from design to construction, operations, and maintenance. They want openness, interoperability, and transparency. And increasingly, they see AI as the catalyst that can finally make that possible.

At the summit, Bentley Labs showcased an immersive visualization of the Big U using technologies such as Gaussian splats, digital twins, and AI-driven experiences. Visitors could stand inside a virtual reconstruction of flood events and understand the human impact of infrastructure decisions in ways that drawings and reports alone cannot achieve.

Yet technology is only part of the story.

Again and again, speakers returned to a larger idea: coherence. AI delivers its greatest value not when it automates individual tasks, but when it connects across entire systems. That means open APIs, shared languages such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and the ability to move information across organizational boundaries. As Bentley CTO Julian Moutte explains, infrastructure assets will outlive today's software platforms, making openness essential as the data that describes infrastructure will remain valuable for decades to come.

The lesson from Hurricane Sandy is not simply that cities need stronger defenses.

It is that resilient infrastructure requires resilient information. And in a world where climate chaos is growing, and AI capabilities are accelerating, the organizations that embrace openness may be best equipped to build the future we all need.

Tomas and Paul would like to thank those who agreed to be interviewed for this Episode:

• Liana O'Cleirigh, UX Designer, Bentley Labs, Bentley Systems,
• Greg Demchak, Vice President of Emerging Technologies, Bentley Labs, Bentley Systems
• Silvia Rueda, Creative Director, Journey
• Oliver Thomas, Founder & CEO, ArchiTech Network
• Julienne Moute, Chief Technology Officer, Bentley Systems

Just about everywhere, the demand for infrastructure is increasing, but a skills shortage is slowing things down. In this episode, we meet individuals who are taking action.

Dr. Vicki Colvin is Dean of the College of Engineering at Louisiana State University. The College is introducing America’s first Digital Twins Certificate Program and exploring the possibility of developing it into a full-degree program over time. The College is housed in Patrick F. Taylor Hall, the largest academic building in Louisiana and one of the most significant freestanding engineering buildings in the USA. When Vicki started as Dean, she wanted to understand how the building was designed and operated, but the spreadsheets she received didn’t quite meet her needs. She asked staff and students to create a digital twin of the building, and everyone was amazed by the exciting learning journey that came next.

Professor Scott Fargason leads the certificate programme at LSU. He works closely with Joey Coco, President and CEO of local infrastructure consultancy Forte and Tablada, which deploys digital twins in large-scale local infrastructure. Together, Scott and Joey founded DigiTwin Global, a company that is accelerating the growth of the digital twin industry.

Dustin Parkman is Vice President for Industry Solutions at Bentley and lives nearby. Dustin has been deepening Bentley’s partnership with the College of Engineering as it develops its digital twin practice. This includes supporting the Digital Twin Symposium, which mobilizes researchers, government leaders, and industry innovators to shape Louisiana’s future as an AI-powered hub for digital twin innovation.

We meet Meredyth Yorek and Katy Tye, two LSU Digital Art and Media master's graduates who are now pursuing their Doctorates in Design at LSU. Both Meredyth and Katy worked on a project between LSU and NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. For decades, Michoud has been known as "America's Rocket Factory", building the rockets for

• the Apollo programme,
• the Space Shuttles,
• and today’s Artemis programme.

Michoud’s most prominent building is bigger than 31 professional football fields, all under one roof. And Michoud is always aiming to be the ‘’factory of the future’. NASA partnered with LSU to build a digital twin of its main building, and LSU turned this into a learning experience for different degree students, including Meredyth and Katy.

Today, Meredyth and Katy’s PhDs are focused on using digital twins in cultural heritage.

We also met John Ahmet Erkoyuncu, Professor in Digital Engineering and Head of Centre for Digital and Design Engineering at Cranfield University in the UK. John has been running a ‘Digital Twins for Senior Leaders Course’ for the last few years, and we caught up to find out how it is going.

The demand for new, bigger, data centres to fuel the growth Artificial Intelligence is unrelenting. In this Episode we meet Preston Williams from DPR, Preston is part of the team who designed and planned the construction of one of the biggest data centres ever built in America so far. Once the data centre is fully operational in 2026 it will consume 1.2GW of power, a little more than half of the power output of the Hoover Damn. Already planning for an even bigger data centre has been announced.

We meet David Lawson from France’s Assystem, one of the top three nuclear engineering companies worldwide, to talk about whether nuclear power is needed to power data centres, and how small modular reactors are likely to be part of the solution.

David Ayeni, Bentley’s Partner Manager explains how creating a digital ecosystem, interoperability, and digital platforms are key to the next stage of the industry if its to meet demand. And we talk to Dara Kherea and Sukshma Paranjpe from Bohm, a scale-up company, helping digitise the construction industry with smart contracts, tokenisation, distributed ledger technologies, and the concept of ‘trustlessness’.

Many industry analysts expect the demand for the processing power of data centres to triple between 2025 and 2030 as artificial intelligence spreads across industries. While the prospect of hundreds of billions being spent is enticing, it is putting pressure on the infrastructure industry to deliver, compounded by a shortage of skilled workers, in an industry that has been slow to grasp the productivity gains digitisation brings.

We hear how the pressure to build massive data centres is leading to new ways of working, new partnerships and alliances, and creating an innovation window where digital twins, robots, drones and AI, are all finding their place.

The Bentley Horizons podcast is co-hosted by Tomas Kellner, Bentley’s Chief Storyteller, and Paul Wilson, Chair of the Advisory Board for Smartcitiesworld.net.