At the G7 summit in Hiroshima, a 2023 White House fact sheet reiterated that the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment would prioritize transparency, sound governance and anti-corruption safeguards for the projects it finances. The document signaled that the decisive layer of infrastructure is increasingly digital: cloud platforms now coordinate drawings, schedules and carbon reports for every financed asset. Those requirements make data management as strategic as steel or concrete.

Cloud-hosted architecture, engineering and construction software—often called AEC/BIM platforms—underpins megaprojects backed by both Washington-aligned and Beijing-aligned lenders. Because both blocs accept similar data standards, the applications appear neutral. The contest lies instead in rules that decide where data reside, who can audit them and how long records must be kept.

Key Points

  • A 2023 G7 fact sheet emphasized transparency requirements for PGII.
  • ISO 19650 and cloud Common Data Environments now serve as a shared technical baseline across blocs.
  • Trimble reports more than 30 million cumulative Connect user sessions; Autodesk and Bentley market similar global offerings.
  • Chinese vendors Glodon and Lubansoft sell BIM suites tailored to domestic codes and hosting mandates.
  • Analysts say leverage is shifting from owning software to controlling data residency and disclosure.

ISO 19650 and the Common Data Environment


ISO 19650 defines a Common Data Environment (CDE) as an agreed source of information across a project lifecycle. Industry guides describe the model as a single source of truth where every revision is logged and suitability codes mark whether data are ready for coordination or execution. ISO sets out these requirements in its overview of building-information modelling.

To meet those rules, asset owners now establish cloud repositories that track models, requests for information and cost data from design through handover. Bentley Systems promoted its Infrastructure Cloud as such a CDE during a 2024 webinar, while a 2023 guidance note by Trimble offered similar instructions. The parallel messaging shows how vendors now market compliance, not just features.

Certification followed on the vendor side. In 2020 BSI Group awarded Willow a BIM Kitemark for ISO 19650 compliance, signaling early customer demand for traceable data workflows before great-power competition hardened. The kitemark illustrates that governance questions were already influencing purchase decisions.

More Foreign Policy Articles

Infrastructure Alignments, Part III: China’s Push to Pair Big Capital with Better Governance
Infrastructure Alignments, Part I: Competing Visions for Global Roads, Ports and Power
Pipelines, Partners, and Power: Kazakhstan Rebuilds Its Oil Strategy
Rockefeller’s Pacific Pivot: How the Trilateral Commission Raised Japan to Western Equal

Global Vendors With Cross-Border Reach


ISO alignment allows U.S.-listed software firms to serve projects regardless of the funding flag. Platforms such as Autodesk BIM 360, Bentley ProjectWise and Trimble Connect all advertise global user bases. Trimble told investors in 2024 that Connect had logged more than 30 million cumulative user sessions.

Project owners have noticed. Rail operators and energy ministries now write CDE requirements directly into procurement documents and cite lifecycle data continuity as a primary benefit. Presentations at the 2024 Bentley forum on integrated delivery showed how access to clean asset histories, rather than license counts, drives decisions.

Neutrality can still evaporate. Contracts often let owners switch hosting regions if geopolitical risk rises, yet local regulators can impose residency mandates that override those escape clauses. Where data live—and who can subpoena them—defines the boundary between commercially neutral tooling and state influence.

China’s Homegrown Suites


Chinese vendors have built comprehensive BIM suites that embed local codes into design and construction workflows. Company materials state that Glodon markets a five-dimensional suite linking quantity take-off to cost forecasts for clients in many countries. Revenue and user counts for 2023 were not independently verified in the supplied sources.

Shenzhen-based Lubansoft promotes automated code checks through a digital-city research network. Academic work in 2023 described how such platforms hard-wire local rules into model checking, reducing manual review and extending regulatory oversight. The approach aligns software architecture with national policy goals.

By owning the software stack, Chinese regulators can more easily mandate domestic hosting requirements, including for some overseas Belt and Road Initiative projects. That prospect raises questions for vendors that aim to remain in both ecosystems. Market share could increasingly begin to follow geopolitical lines rather than technical merit.

Governance Rules as the Real Battleground


Policy documents from Washington and Brussels highlight data transparency as a precondition for infrastructure finance. The 2023 White House fact sheet and a 2024 European Parliament paper both tie funding to audit-ready records. Their language presumes ISO-aligned CDEs that can surface emissions data and contract variations on demand.

Beijing is also refining its data playbook. A 2024 analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes pilot use of blockchain for supply-chain provenance on Belt and Road projects. That architecture is designed to give Chinese agencies granular insight into payments and material origins.

Both camps therefore plug similar technical standards into different legal regimes. The struggle moves from writing code to writing rules on data residency, disclosure thresholds and carbon reporting formats. Those clauses may tilt long-term influence even when the underlying software is identical.

Strategic Choices for U.S.-Aligned Firms


Neutral toolchains let U.S. contractors pitch downstream services—digital twins, emissions modeling and predictive maintenance—on projects funded by any lender. Expertise in data analytics travels wherever ISO 19650 is specified. Licensing alone is no longer the main gatekeeper.

Risks persist. If concessional finance packages require buyers to use Chinese platforms, American vendors could be fenced out of large swaths of certain markets. Parallel data spheres would raise switching costs and undercut global benchmarking.

Firms have responded by lobbying G7 governments to make ISO 19650 compliance and open application programming interfaces mandatory in PGII contracts. Such clauses keep the ecosystem contestable and preserve the option to migrate data if political conditions shift. Policy design, not software design, becomes the lever.

Series Coda


The previous installments mapped finance flows, physical alignments and capital governance. This finale shows that lifecycle information binds them all. Control of asset data now influences financing terms, construction methods and long-term maintenance.

Whether PGII’s transparency model or the BRI’s more state-centric approach sets more of the tone, future contests will likely revolve around residency clauses and interface standards rather than headline software acquisitions. Toolmakers will stay central only if their neutrality survives in policy. Owners, vendors and governments therefore share an incentive to keep the data pipes open.

Sources