Issue Infrastructure: productivity measured over the asset lifecycle

Summary

This issue describes how infrastructure productivity is being redefined around the whole life of an asset rather than its construction. EY argues that failing to account for climate, system and safety risks can turn infrastructure from productive capital into a liability, pushing the sector toward outcome-based measures. AI-driven construction and automation are spreading where labor is structurally scarce, notably in South Korea, Japan, the UAE and Scandinavia, but the biggest gains are appearing after the build, in operations and asset management. Digital twins are expanding from single assets to whole infrastructure systems, giving continuous visibility of performance, risk and demand. Virtual Singapore, the UK's National Digital Twin Programme and Shanghai's city-scale models show efforts to link data and decisions across systems long run separately. EY expects governments to favor operators that can prove predictive performance over the lifecycle, not just past cost efficiency.