Bentley Systems’ Year in Infrastructure conference and awards, this year held in Amsterdam, revealed the usual review of progress in the digital design world for infrastructure and the built environment, new tools the company now offered clients and a list of winners in several categories of awards in a range of relevant industry sectors.
This year, there was nearly 250 projects were nominated by organisations from 47 different countries, with winners selected across 12 categories by a panel of independent judges.
Chris Bradshaw, chief sustainability and education officer, Bentley Systems, congratulated the Going Digital Award winners.
He said: “These groundbreaking projects demonstrate how leading infrastructure engineering and construction companies, together with innovative owner-operators, are harnessing digital advancements—from connected data to AI—to transform project delivery and elevate asset performance. Your achievements are setting the standard for resilience, sustainability, and impact across infrastructure sectors.”
Among the winners was a new award, the Bentley Envision award, which honours a company that had gone “beyond technical excellence and economic value” to further deliver both “exceptional” and “measurable” environmental and social outcomes.
The winner was the Saudi Arabia based GeoStruXer, an engineering solutions company that offers a range of services from geohazard assessment to climate mitigation. The awards specifically noted that the foundation system allows for construction on soil that is otherwise too unstable due to seismic activities or other factors.
This involves a network of “micropiles” (small diameter drilled pipe between 50 to 300 millimetres) that minimises disruption to the environment while holding up the raft slab (steel reinforced concrete structure) used for foundation.
The winning company said it aligns its work with global sustainability frameworks and employs several LEED (US based green building rating system) consultants to help reduce carbon footprints in its construction. This includes engineering work to reduce excavation, concrete use and unnecessary reinforcement.
Chief executive and technical director Hamzah M. B. Al-Hashemi said he started the company because he was deeply passionate about geotechnical engineering and wanted to bridge the “longstanding gap between structural and geotechnical design” by offering “high end geostructual solutions.”
“I believe understanding the soil is understanding humanity. We were created from the earth — its complexity, resilience, and imperfections mirror our own.
To build responsibly, we must first listen to the ground beneath us. It holds stories of the past and the foundation for our future.
Submissions for the sustainable infrastructure awards went through an additional level of scrutiny through US based not for profit, the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.
Australian wins education award
Also of note is the Australian winner of the Educator of the Year Award, which honours an academic professional who has made outstanding contributions to infrastructure education.
This awards innovative teaching methods, impactful student engagement, and the integration of cutting-edge engineering software and technology into the curriculum.
This year, the winner is Irfaan Peerun, a civil engineering and construction management lecturer from Griffith University.
Peerun developed the digital and special technology course and integrated digital engineering into the coursework of third year and master’s degree courses. He is a “subject matter expert” for Bentley Systems and co-leads its digital twin project at the university.
He championed the Minecraft to reality STEM outreach programs, which are designed to interest younger students across southeast Queensland.
Outside of the university, Peerun is a practicing senior geotechnical engineer and designs for trenchless technology (a construction method for sub-surface work that uses “no dig” techniques).
On top of the three award categories, were 18 projects awarded with “Founder’s Honour”, which was presented to exemplary projects, individuals and organisations that align with the company’s mission of advancing infrastructure for a better quality of life.
Amongst those was the only Australian recipient, engineering consultants Arcadis, for its Coffs Harbour bypass.
The Infrastructure Sustainability Council has awarded the bypass the highest possible infrastructure sustainability (IS) design rating of 86.39.
Apart from reducing carbon emissions and reducing project footprint, the project is also preserving local native vegetation and replacing the concrete noise wall with low embodied carbon content material with good noise attenuation.
Most notable is its use of high efficiency sediment (HES) basins; a real time treatment system that removes suspended solids such as clay, silt and debris from rainwater passing through the roads.
While the project is currently more than half complete, part of the project has been operational since mid-2023.
Scott Lawrence, senior manager environment and sustainability for Transport for NSW, said the HES system is already proving its value, showing a 78 per cent reduction in suspended solids, meaning heavy metals are not being carried off into streams and waterways.
Lawrence said solids “reduce oxygen in streams, smother aquatic habitats” and this was essential to protecting waterways such as the world heritage listed Solitary Island Marine Park.
2025 Going Digital Awards Winners
Bridges and Tunnels: Italferr S.p.A. (Italy)
Cities, Campuses, and Facilities: Voyants Solutions Private Ltd. (India)
Construction: Deloitte and Vale (Brazil)
Energy Production: Baosteel Engineering & Technology Group Co., Ltd. (China)
Geospatial and Reality Modeling: Al Madinah Region Development Authority (MDA) (Saudi Arabia)
Project Delivery: Egis (France)
Rail and Transit: PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero) (Indonesia)
Roads and Highways: Jabatan Kerja Raya Sarawak (JKRS) (Malaysia)
Structural Engineering: AVS Engineers | ISID Architect, Nikhil Mahashur and Associates, Structural Engineer – Siddharth Sharma (India)
Subsurface Modeling and Analysis: Fervo Energy (United States)
Transmission and Distribution: China Energy Engineering Group Guangxi Electric Power Design Institute Co., Ltd. (China)
Water and Wastewater: PT Wika Tirta Jaya Jatiluhur (WTJJ) (Indonesia)
Remaining Founders’ Honors recipients
- AECOM (United Kingdom) for Old Oak Common Great Western Railway Station Rail Systems
- Ansys RF Channel Modeler for NASA Lunar Mission Planning (The Moon) for NASA Lunar Mission planning for ground subscribers on the moon
- Aquawolf (United States) for from fire zones to storms: a case for efficient and smart pole modeling
- Aurecon (New Zealand) for digitizing urban ground: transforming subsurface engineering
- citiME Consultancy LLC (United Arab Emirates) for micromobility modeling in Abu Dhabi’s strategic transport model
- DC Water (United States) for from blueprint to reality for DC Water’s digital twin implementation
- DPR Construction (United States) for building with care: lean 4d planning for children’s hospital
- Environmental Systems Lab, Cornell University (United States) – Energy Atlas: A Digital Twin for Decarbonizing Ithaca’s Building Stock
- Forte and Tablada, Inc. (United States) for 17th Street Canal Pump Station Digital Twin
- Geoambiente S/A (Brazil) for high-resolution modelling for groundwater remediation using leapfrog
- Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) (Lithuania) for digital twin for buildings operational carbon evaluation
- Leviatan Group (Romania) – optimized 4d planning for military educational campus
- Ormat Technologies Inc. (Dominica) – Roseau Valley Geothermal Project
- PowerChina Henan Electric Power Survey & Design Institute Co., Ltd. (China) for substation flood risks assessment, monitoring, and early warning system
- PT Hutama Karya (Indonesia) for Trans Papua Road – Mamberamo-Elelim section
- PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy (Indonesia) – Lumut Balai Unit-3
- Shanghai Investigation, Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd. (China) – digital innovation in the full lifecycle of offshore wind power
The Fifth Estate travelled to Amsterdam and attended the conference as a guest of Bentley Systems.