Buildings and infrastructure still overlooking “proven digital solutions”

A new report argues that proven, ready-to-deploy digital optimisation tools remain underused, particularly in the built environment. Image: Adobe Stock

While traditional infrastructure such as solar, wind and storage continues to attract the majority of capital, the report warns that proven, ready-to-deploy digital optimisation tools remain underused, particularly in the built environment.

Donatas Karčiauskas, CEO of Exergio, a company specialising in AI-powered energy optimisation, says investors are still overlooking high-impact technologies that can be applied to existing buildings and infrastructure.

“Most buildings don’t need to be rebuilt, but re-tuned,” says Karčiauskas. “Investors are spending billions on long-term infrastructure, while proven digital solutions like predictive maintenance, digital twins, and advanced BMS are still underused.”

The report found that 64% of investors have backed energy efficiency technologies (including electrification), with 51% also investing in transport infrastructure. However, only 15% of clean energy investment reaches emerging markets,.

The report shows that East Asia, North America, and Europe dominate the market, with more than half of investors active in each region. Just 20% of respondents identified the Middle East and North Africa or Southeast Asia as potential future investment destinations, due in part to political and regulatory risk and a lack of investment-grade infrastructure.

AI-driven retrofit solutions could be especially impactful in these markets due to their lower capital cost and faster implementation timelines.

“Far too often, investments go toward large, multi-year infrastructure projects,” says Karčiauskas. “Unfortunately, digital retrofits and AI-based energy tools, which can show measurable savings in a matter of months, get overlooked. These aren’t future concepts. They’re off-the-shelf solutions that are already working.”

Exergio cited examples of its AI-powered system delivering energy savings of 29% in electricity and 36% in heating at a shopping centre, saving nearly €1 million. In a business complex, cooling and ventilation energy waste was reduced by 44% through real-time HVAC control.

As construction firms continue to face rising energy costs and emissions pressure the report predicted that in the future energy efficiency would no longer be a secondary goal but the main lever for achieving both climate and economic targets as existing buildings operate more intelligently through digital tools.