Infrastructure Victoria is an independent advisory body that assesses Victoria’s infrastructure needs and priorities. Victoria faces complex, economy-wide challenges: ageing population, climate change, maturing infrastructure, urbanisation, and stretched budgets that need to go further. As Infrastructure Victoria prepares to update its 30-year infrastructure strategy, the focus is on enhancing productivity – achieving more with fewer resources.
We assessed the impact of digital technology on infrastructure productivity. We identified key digital technologies, that have not yet been adopted at scale in Victoria’s infrastructure sectors, that would boost productivity by 2030. We brought together our Foresight team, and specialists from across infrastructure, technology, economics and strategy, to do a horizon scan to identify 25 emerging and viable technologies that could be adopted by government.
Australia faced its lowest productivity growth in 60 years, according to the 2023 Productivity Commission. Becoming more sophisticated in how we use digital technologies, and getting ready for future technology, can improve productivity, growth and resilience to climate change. Our work will help Infrastructure Victoria to advise the government on delivering more sustainable, cost-effective infrastructure projects.
Identifying technologies to drive productivity
We started with a ‘technology taxonomy’ to help us organise and frame our analysis. We researched tech practice and literature to provide a comprehensive horizon scan to identify and categorise emerging and established technologies and their potential for impact and uptake.
We identified 25 potential technologies that were further assessed to understand the policy potential, and the commercial and technological readiness of the applications. Technologies were assessed by the ability to have a high productivity impact, contribute to a resilient future, and the probability of being broadly adopted by 2030. This gave us five of the most suitable technologies that could drive productivity growth in Victoria. We also identified high potential, less mature applications that Victoria needs to be planning for now to support future climate and energy transitions.
Our approach included a mix of foresight techniques and recognised infrastructure evaluation and quantification methodologies to create a clear and reliable hand off point for further assessment by the economics team.
Analysing technologies through an economic lens
Our economists developed specific applications of the five technologies to develop something tangible that could be evaluated for economic impact. The analysis identified the most feasible, highest-impact technologies and the key actions to support industry adoption. This provided a clear picture of how each technology could be implemented, showing potential economic impact and relative adoption costs, including workforce retraining, technology development, and capital investment.
Key findings included: robotics offers the greatest potential impact but requires significant investment, geospatial technologies are a low-cost, more attainable near-term opportunity but measures lower benefits.
Underscoring the scalability of each technology also provided valuable insights, for example, the use of artificial intelligence in school construction could generate $9.3 billion in economic impact by 2055 if expanded across the entire infrastructure portfolio.
The analysis also identified common actions to support the successful adoption and impact of these technologies, including, building industry readiness, workforce skills, informed procurement practices, technology development, and establishing robust governance and regulatory frameworks.
Validating technologies
Our experts validated the technical viability of each of the potential technologies, assessing the readiness for implementation and barriers and challenges that would need to be overcome. This helped the selection of the use cases for validation by industry experts.
At the heart of the project are the enabling technologies, the ones with the potential to accelerate adoption across domains. Artificial intelligence (AI), internet-of-things edge computing (IoT edge), high speed telecommunications, high performance computing, and electric charging and positioning could be catalysts for applied technologies such as robotics for inspection, advanced imaging for identifying potential infrastructure clashes below ground, and geospatial technologies for rapidly identifying and predicting floods or fire.
Working with Arup has been a great experience. They were able to tap into in-house experts to answer any technical matters. I would highly recommend their services.
Sam Trowse
Senior Land Use Planning and Policy Advisor, Infrastructure Victoria
What we delivered
Established a baseline for comparing and discussing technologies to drive productivity gains in Victorian infrastructure by 2030
Demonstrated how technology addresses some of our most pressing economic, environmental and social challenges
Highlighted that scaling technologies across sectors has major economic potential
If you'd like to speak to one of our digital experts about any of the issues raised on this page or a potential collaboration then please get in touch by completing the form.
