Digitalisation and AI as the answer to skills shortages and climate targets
Digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI) are neither a curse nor a blessing in the construction industry, but a necessity. The 110 industry experts who took part in this year's seminar organised by the Institute of Building Technology and Energy at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) agreed on this.
The construction industry needs both digitalisation and AI in response to increasing complexity and data density. According to a HSLU press release on the seminar organised by its Institute of Building Technology and Energy(IGE), both are also needed to increase efficiency in times of a shortage of skilled workers, declining productivity and an urgently needed reduction in greenhouse gases from buildings.
This annual IGE event is aimed at specialists in energy, building and construction technology and architecture. This year’s event attracted 110 participants.
Several speakers shed light on the latest developments in AI for the construction industry. For example, Bruno Michel from IBM Research spoke about “artificial stupidity” when generative AI generates incorrect information with poor training data from the internet. Jörn Plönnings from the University of Rostock also emphasised that a lack of training data is a major problem for the construction industry. However, AI is neither a curse nor a blessing, but simply a necessity in view of the increasing complexity and flood of data.
Marcel Imfeld from Schindler Aufzüge and Roman Steffen from Trafiko spoke about intelligent mobility, which enables denser construction or fewer parking spaces in neighbourhoods, for example. The automated monitoring of buildings was also covered in various presentations.
The HSLU presented its Lightscore project, which aims to launch an evidence-based integrative lighting assessment. It is also working on a new SIA standard for the energy efficiency of data centres. And finally, Roger Buser from HSLU reported on his journey through India with the emission-free solar vehicle Solar Butterfly made of ocean PET, where he encountered numerous innovative solutions to combat climate change.