Infrastructure is at an inflection point—AVEVA World Milan is talking about what’s next

Posted: May 06, 2026

Aging assets, climate volatility, surging electricity demand, water stress, cyber threats, and regulatory pressure are converging at once. McKinsey estimates that a cumulative $106 trillion in investment will be necessary over the next fifteen years to meet infrastructure needs.^[i]

At the same time, the definition of infrastructure itself is expanding to include structures and systems like electric vehicle charging corridors, data centers, and renewable power plants.^[ii] Managing this new infrastructure means connecting sectors that rarely talked before—for instance, the data center that can't run without the water plant down the road.

At AVEVA World Milan, industry leaders are gathering to share the strategies already delivering results. From digital twins of desalination plants to integrated SCADA systems for fully electric bus fleets—today’s infrastructure challenges require forward-thinking solutions.      

The energy‑water nexus has a joint optimization issue

Few challenges illustrate infrastructure interdependence more clearly than the energy-water nexus. Water utilities are often among the largest electricity consumers in most regions, and data center growth is compounding the pressure—by 2030, global data center electricity demand is set to more than double to around 945 TWh.^[iii] Powering those facilities also requires massive amounts of water for cooling. Optimizing one system without the other increases cost and risk for both.

Smart infrastructure is becoming a climate-resilience system

Connected sensors, AI-driven analytics, and digital twins now allow buildings and cities to manage energy, water, mobility, and emergency response in real time—anticipating demand rather than reacting to disruptions. Stanford, for example, reduced water waste by 80% and achieved net-zero electricity use through connected data infrastructure. At a city scale, Nava Raipur was purpose-built as India's first sustainable smart city under the National Smart Cities Mission, using connected infrastructure to manage water, power, sewerage, and street lighting in real time. As a result, city operators can anticipate and respond to demand across every major civic system.

Connected industrial clusters are the next frontier

Infrastructure leaders are moving beyond individual buildings toward regional and national platforms that integrate energy, water, transportation, and logistics into coordinated networks. Australia's Kwinana Industries Council is an early model: a shared intelligence platform spanning chemicals, energy, and transportation that has improved resource efficiency while cutting waste and emissions.

What industry leaders are asking

Modern infrastructure resilience depends on orchestration, not optimization in isolation. Many organizations are asking: How do we build resilience into infrastructure that wasn’t designed for today’s risks? How do we deliver more infrastructure, faster, within tighter regulatory and financial constraints? How do we scale AI and digital technologies? How do we balance energy transition goals with reliability and affordability? How do we protect infrastructure systems as cyber and digital risks escalate?

What you’ll hear at AVEVA World Milan

At AVEVA World Milan, leaders across water, power, transportation, technology, and more are coming together to share what’s working and what’s next. Here’s a look at a few of the organizations presenting this year:

• 4Sight OT and Calcamite are deploying fleets of modular, on-site wastewater treatment plants and connecting them to CONNECT for fleet-wide remote management. This session provides the technical and business blueprint for this innovative “digital leapfrog” approach to sewer infrastructure. 4Sight OT and Calcamite are a Sustainability Impact Award finalist.
  
  
• ACCIONA Water put a digital twin at the heart of one of Hong Kong's most ambitious infrastructure projects — the Tseung Kwan O desalination plant, just named Desalination Plant of the Year at the Global Water Awards 2025. By combining real-time and historical data with dynamic simulation and machine learning, the digital twin supports everything from scenario testing and optimization to operator training and predictive maintenance. Learn how they built one of the most advanced water infrastructure projects in the world.
  
  
• Aziende Trasporti Milanesi (ATM), the public transport operator for the city of Milan, is transitioning its bus fleet to fully electric vehicles. This transformation requires efficient management of charging operations. Aziende Trasporti Milanesi (ATM) is deploying an advanced SCADA system that integrates real-time data from charging stations with bus schedules and travel times to optimize energy use, charging efficiency, and service reliability.
  
  
• Power and Water Corporation manages water, gas, transmission, and generation services across Australia's Northern Territory, overseeing everything from remote dam monitoring to urban energy distribution. Now, the utility is bringing it all under a single, unified data infrastructure. From remote demand forecasting to sustainable building management and responsible external data sharing, they're finding new ways to extend the value of operational data without compromising the security and reliability a utility depends on. Learn from their deployment of AVEVA™ PI Data Infrastructure across one of Australia's most diverse utility operations.

AVEVA World Milan panels

Looking for practical takeaways? We have three panels that dig into the challenges that matter most:

• Connected mobility: Building the digital backbone for sustainable transportation Real-time data, advanced platforms, and AI are changing how transportation networks operate. This session looks at how infrastructure leaders — from smart highway operators to electric fleet managers — are using connected systems to cut emissions, streamline operations, and coordinate across regions.
  
  
• Connected cities, intelligent buildings: Pathways to sustainable performance Hear from the people behind real deployments — using digital connectivity and intelligent systems to reduce waste, improve reliability, and make better decisions with the data they already have.

• Connected water: Accelerating sustainability with AI-driven insights
  This panel explores real‑world examples of connected water infrastructure enabling predictive analytics, better resource management, and more resilient water systems.

More than a conference

AVEVA World Milan is also about connection. Roundtables, offsite events, and industry receptions provide space for the conversations you’ll remember long after the event. The infrastructure decisions being made right now will shape the next thirty years. Milan is where that conversation is happening.

Ready to join us in Milan, May 19-21, and take part in what comes next?

^{[i] Green, Alastair, Ishaan Nangia, and Nicola Sandri. "The Infrastructure Moment." McKinsey & Company, Sept. 9, 2025, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/infrastructure/our-insights/the-infrastructure-moment.
[ii] "What Is Infrastructure?" McKinsey & Company, Sept. 17, 2025, https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-infrastructure.
[iii] "Data Centres to Consume More Electricity Than Japan by 2030." World Economic Forum, April 2025, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/04/data-centres-hydrogen-technology-news-april-2025/.}