Three projects from South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia have been chosen as finalists for Bentley’s 2026 Year in Infrastructure Awards.
Selected by independent panels of global industry experts, 36 infrastructure awards finalists have demonstrated how professionals are leveraging technologies including digital twins and AI to deliver highly efficient project outcomes.
More than 300 submissions were received from 53 countries, encompassing projects spanning 12 categories within the infrastructure lifecycle.
The Australian finalists are:
Victoria’s Department of Transport and Planning: The Department established a single authoritative environment for governed ingestion, validation, cataloguing and downstream integration across digital twins, GIS, engineering workflows and asset systems, for the state’s road and rail corridors.
The workflow reduces the time needed to locate, validate and access suitable datasets by an estimated 50% and increased reuse across projects by 20%, while helping teams reduce repeat captures and support more reliable transport decisions.
Torrens to Darlington Alliance (John Holland, Bouygues, Arcadis, Jacobs, and Ventia, in partnership with the South Australian Department for Infrastructure and Transport): For the digital delivery for South Australia’s north-south Torrens to Darlington corridor, the alliance implemented a connected digital delivery model, establishing a governed digital thread across design, construction planning and decision-making.
Using digital workflows, the team achieved an estimated 5% to 8% efficiency gain, equal to approximately 350,000 to 600,000 hours saved, while standardised design attributes contributed to an estimated 10% to 20% reduction in material overdesign.
APD Global: For Western Australia’s $600 million Clean Energy Link–North, APD Global connected design, review, visualisation and delivery workflows. This digital-twin-enabled delivery resulted in a 15% reduction in engineering design time, a 20% drop in downstream rework, and a 10% decrease in material waste while accelerating major milestones 38% ahead of schedule and saving 8,000 engineering hours.
The future of infrastructure is intelligent
According to Bentley, out of the 36 finalist projects, 24 used AI in some form and 22 showed strong or supporting evidence of a connected digital foundation.
“This year’s finalists show how infrastructure is moving from disconnected files, manual workflows, and periodic inspections to connected information, intelligent automation, and continuous insight,” said Cate Lochead, chief marketing officer, Bentley Systems.
“The breadth of projects — from geotechnical and subsurface modelling to wildfire risk and landslide mitigation, coastal and flood infrastructure, and stormwater planning — demonstrate that the future of infrastructure is not just more digital, it is more intelligent.”
Each of the 36 finalists will present their projects during Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure Awards event in Singapore, 6 to 7 October 2026.
