Build back smarter: can tech make engineering more civil?

Smart infrastructure promises to use data to enhance physical infrastructure, transforming how building, construction projects, energy systems and even entire cities are designed. Jason Walsh asks if it can help tackle two immediate challenges for Ireland: housing and connectivity

Dermot O’Kane, head of sales at geographic information services (GIS) specialists Esri Ireland: ‘People talk about technology being the driver, but actually it’s about people. The real drivers are government agencies and private sector players like ourselves, and it has to come back to how it helps people’

From smartphones to smart watches, almost every device is today sold as a data node, but some devices, and some uses of the data they collect, are smarter than others.

Smart infrastructure, for instance, promises to connect not only to the internet but to connect us to the places and people we need and want. At the heart of the idea is improved infrastructure design, driven by useful live data, collected on-site, processed and analysed ...