Category: News

The difference between technical supervision and works direction in a construction project can be very subtle; some people even consider the two concepts to be synonyms. However, although they are sometimes used interchangeably, there are differences in the responsibilities and duties of each role that need to be taken into account.

For decades, “prefab” sounded like an emergency fix or a construction-site cabin. That’s changing fast, and not because of fashion: two recent stories confirm it with hard numbers, one from the world’s largest housing market and one less than 300 kilometers from our offices.

A number surfaced this week that sums up where industry is heading better than any report could: DFactory Barcelona, the largest Industry 4.0 hub in southern Europe, is tripling its footprint, growing from 17,000 to 60,000 m² before the end of the year, backed by a €50 million investment. The site currently operates at full occupancy with 44 companies installed, and the expansion is expected to generate 1,500 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect ones. In Catalonia, Industry 4.0-specialized companies now number 1,447 — triple the figure of four years ago — accounting for 2.6% of regional GDP.

We talk a lot about algorithms, but artificial intelligence is, above all, an infrastructure problem. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest report, electricity demand from data centres surged 17% in 2025, while demand from AI-focused data centres specifically grew by 50% over the same period. The projection for 2030 is even more striking: from 485 TWh to 950 TWh globally, nearly doubling in five years. Just five major tech companies invested over $400 billion in 2025 alone — a figure that already exceeds global investment in oil and gas production.

This isn’t a minor detail for the industrial sector: it means AI has effectively become a first-tier industrial consumer, with the same grid, power, and planning demands as a steel mill or a chemical plant.

The International Energy Agency just published a figure worth reading twice: by 2030, data centres will account for roughly 3% of global electricity consumption — as much as all of Japan combined. To sustain that growth, the world will mobilise close to two trillion dollars in digital infrastructure before the decade is out. In 2026 alone, Big Tech’s spending on this race could reach $700 billion, up from $400 billion in 2025.

This isn’t an abstract, far-off statistic. Spain has become one of the epicentres of this boom: the country has attracted over €34 billion in data centre investment in just six months, with a project pipeline nearing €90 billion. Every new facility announced raises the same underlying question — the one that actually matters to us as engineers: where will all that energy come from, and how do we manage it without the planet footing the bill?

KPMG has just published its Global Tech Report 2026 on industrial manufacturing, based on responses from 258 technology leaders across 22 countries. The headline is encouraging: 68% of manufacturers already deploy AI somewhere in their operations, and 49% report concrete financial benefits from those investments. The old narrative of AI stuck in isolated pilots is finally fading.

But the report itself points to the catch. 83% of executives believe they’re building a solid data foundation to support AI. Yet 76% still cite unreliable data as one of the top risks to their AI implementation. That gap between confidence and actual capability is arguably the most important number in the whole study.

This week the International Energy Agency (IEA) put a number on the table worth pausing over: by 2030, the data centres powering artificial intelligence will consume as much electricity as an entire country — Japan. Sustaining that growth will require close to two trillion dollars in investment before the decade is out.

At the same time, another report released this same week — Deloitte’s Smart Manufacturing and Operations Survey 2025 — shows that industrial plants already using AI, automation and data analytics are seeing production gains of 10% to 20% and productivity gains of up to 20%. The same technology driving up global electricity demand is the one making factories more efficient. That’s the paradox — and the opportunity.

A phrase keeps coming up these days in reports from Deloitte, KPMG and the World Economic Forum: smart manufacturing is no longer a future promise. On July 24, several economic outlets highlighted a figure that sums up the moment: 92% of manufacturers now see plant-level AI as their main driver of competitiveness over the next three years. This isn’t about isolated pilots anymore — it’s a transformation reaching the operational core of industry, and energy is one of the first areas where it shows.