The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) is the U.K government’s centre of expertise for infrastructure and major projects, and it published its policy document Transforming Infrastructure Performance (TIP): Roadmap to 2030, setting out its vision for innovation and reform in infrastructure delivery.

This roadmap builds on the progress made across the sector since the launch of TIP in 2017 and builds on the reality that industry must go further to maximise the impact of the planned infrastructure investment over the next decade and to “meet the challenges of delivering infrastructure projects in the digital age, regenerating places across the UK, achieving net-zero carbon and replenishing our natural environment.”

At the heart of the TIP Programme is the need for step change in productivity and efficiency in the planning, design, manufacture, construction and operation of infrastructure. This, the strategy explains “will require data from all parts of the system to inform decision making, from improved information management in delivery to the creation of digital twins for asset maintenance and optimisation.”

The use of data and digital twins are key tools to help infrastructure professionals better understand how to drive design efficiency and boost productivity across the design, construction and management of modern infrastructure assets. The challenge remains how to accelerate the uptake of this new technology to become the norm across the planning, design, delivery and operation of our vital infrastructure assets – “to grasp the opportunity for transformation.”

This summit focuses on the infrastructure sector’s digital readiness and maturity to embrace new technologies and help identify and explain the opportunities presented by data and the use of the digital twin concept as a fundamental part of boosting productivity across modern project delivery.