Bentley unveils smart infrastructure applications

BENTLEY Systems, an infrastructure engineering software company, has set out a comprehensive roadmap for infrastructure-focused artificial intelligence (AI), having announced a wave of new AI-powered applications and a collaborative industry initiative during its Year in Infrastructure 2025 conference late last year.

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“AI is poised to transform infrastructure,” says Nicholas Cumins, Bentley CEO. “At Bentley, our vision is for AI to empower infrastructure engineers – not replace them. Trustworthy AI, built on infrastructure context, can improve engineering productivity and transform workflows across project and asset lifecycles.”

At the Year in Infrastructure conference held in October last year, Bentley unveiled next-generation applications for substation design and construction management that accelerate the adoption of AI across project delivery. This follows OpenSite+ for civil site design, the first in a series of new AI-powered applications, which was introduced in 2024.

“We have been creating a new generation of infrastructure applications built on digital twins, powered by AI, and fully connected to Bentley Infrastructure Cloud,” says Francois Valois, Senior Vice-President, Bentley Open Applications. “They show what’s possible when AI is built for real infrastructure workflows and tailored to the needs of engineers.”

OpenUtilities Substation+ is a new application that brings digital twin and AI-powered capabilities to substation design. In rethinking how substations can be designed collaboratively, it helps solve one of the biggest sources of frustration for designers, by allowing multiple users to work at the same time in the same model, reducing errors and rework during construction, says Bentley Systems.

OpenUtilities Substation+ is now available through an early access program.

OpenSite+, the first engineering application leveraging generative AI for civil site design, is now in limited availability. It delivers projects up to 10 times faster without sacrificing accuracy, according to the software provider.