Bentley Systems’ chief technology officer and co-founder has hailed the announcement of the launch of its iTwins Services, a solution that enhances its work in the creation of digital twins for infrastructure projects and assets, as one of the firm’s biggest ever.

“I think the concept of the digital twin is the future,” Keith Bentley told delegates during Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure 2018 conference being in held in London this week.

Available on a subscription basis, iTwins Services combines Bentley’s iModelHub, reality modeling, and web-enabling software technologies within a Connected Data Environment (CDE) for infrastructure engineering. Bentley’s CTO also confirmed the initial release of its iModel.js library, an open-source initiative to “improve the accessibility, for both visualisation and analytical visibility, of infrastructure digital twins.”

iModel.js can be used by developers and IT professionals to quickly and easily create immersive applications that connect their infrastructure digital twins with the rest of their digital world, he explained.

Explaining why the company was willing to opt to place its digital modelling in an open source environment, he said that Bentley has learned from companies such as Facebook and Google: “I don’t know if the winning digital twin solution will be by Bentley but we will be a willing participant. We think it is going to make us more nimble and more relevant. I believe all infrastructure businesses will be transformed by digital twins. There will also be people who will innovate around business opportunities through digital twins. I think this going to be the next nest thing.

“Our work with early adopters of iModelHub over the past year has confirmed to me that its unique strengths for alignment, accountability, and accessibility find their highest and best use, in conjunction with our reality modeling technologies, for enabling project digital twins and performance digital twins. I look forward to actively working with users and external developers to create an open ecosystem of innovation for iTwin Services, leveraging the iModel.js library. I expect Bentley Systems to lead the infrastructure engineering community, as the ‘infrastructure digital twin’ company!”