Using Artificial intelligence in construction

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CHANGES CONSTRUCTION

Construction is a key industry in Europe, accounting for around 7% of European GDP and employing around 11 million people. At the same time, the construction sector produces 36% of all CO2 emissions and consumes 40% of all energy. At the same time, construction is one of the least innovative industries, associated with low long-term efficiency and productivity growth in the sector. All of this offers significant economic, environmental and innovation potential that can be achieved through a proper transformation of the construction sector, while exploiting potential opportunities. Challenges and drivers that can facilitate this are digitalisation, the involvement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the effective use of the value chain (VC) in the entire construction process.

The design of buildings and structures itself plays a significant role in the value chain, along with the involvement of key stakeholders, which radically influences the entire life cycle of a building. The aim of the project is to define the critical areas and problems of the building design phase in the value chain and to effectively eliminate and automate them using artificial intelligence. Another project activity, which will be closely linked to the software development, will be the analysis of the use of AI in the construction value chain with the aim of making it more efficient. This activity will detail the main pitfalls as well as potential opportunities that will help to significantly kick-start the transformation of the construction industry. Innovation in the construction sector will come mainly from digitalisation, e.g. through the use of robotics, 3D scanning, simulation and prefabrication of building elements, or the application of building information modelling.

In December 2020, the CONAI project was extended until the end of 2022 and expanded to include activities leading to a new outcome type of software aimed at reducing the energy performance of buildings.

Key word

artificial ingelligence, software, value chain, digitalisation, transformation

Project results

  • Analysis of the potential of AI in the construction value chain

  • AI software for analysis and design of office building layout

  • AI software for reducing energy consumption in buildings using computer vision

project partners