The digital flywheel is now unstoppable. Smart business will harness it

When the engineers of the Industrial Revolution first designed massive flywheels, they understood that the hardest part was to set them spinning. Those initial turns demand tremendous energy – muscles straining, sweat pouring, fuel burning. And once that great wheel builds momentum, it becomes an unstoppable force, capable of powering huge machines long after the initial push.

The same is true for digitalization. The global transition to smart infrastructure and sustainable energy systems has crossed this crucial threshold. That’s the conclusion of our latest industry survey, the Siemens Infrastructure Transition Monitor (ITM) 2025. The digital flywheel is now spinning.

Significant progress has been made in the past two years, according to the report. Across sectors and regions, C-suite executives report strong progress on advanced tech and automation, particularly in scaling up technologies like AI and digital twins, and automating and streamlining business processes. Yet gains in efficiency, operational resilience and other competitive advantages have not yet become self-perpetuating. We need to accelerate in order to pull more organizations into the transformation. Executives are no longer debating whether to digitalize infrastructure – they are racing to avoid being left behind.

Take the University of East London: though it’s not yet an autonomous campus, it is seeing cost savings due to an integrated approach to energy management. By using a range of technologies, including a large water-source heat pump, it can monitor, analyze and adjust energy use, resulting in annual CO2 savings of up to 1,000 tons and cost savings of over £500,000.

Another example is German rail operator Deutsche Bahn. Siemens software will improve how DB operates its 16,000 kilometres of grid traction power lines, 200 high-voltage switchgear and around 50 generator units. This will ensure a resilient and safe power supply by addressing the complexities of grid management.

Smart infrastructure technologies are also becoming commonplace in other industries, from life sciences and data centres to packaged goods and semiconductors. And demand continues to grow.

The ITM is a comprehensive global pulse check of the journey toward smarter buildings and grids. It measures the gathering momentum towards a net zero future, enabled by digital systems, through the eyes of 1,400 executives in 19 countries worldwide. In 2023, the survey showed only modest progress toward infrastructure transition goals on the national level; by comparison, the 2025 edition documents a remarkable acceleration.

That momentum is clearly visible in the data, with nearly twice as many respondents reporting mature or advanced implementation of various core elements of the infrastructure transition. Most notably, national energy independence initiatives have gained substantial traction, alongside significant advances in large-scale energy storage.

The systematic phase-out of fossil fuel and the expansion of renewable energy capacity – once merely aspirational targets – have now entered mainstream implementation, demonstrating how the initial investments are beginning to generate their own momentum.

What emerges most clearly from the executive insights is that the path to sustainability is paved with business fundamentals rather than environmental aspirations. Organizations are embracing greener infrastructure because digitalization, data analytics and AI improve productivity, operational efficiency, system resilience and cost structures.

Any environmental benefits, while welcome, are a natural byproduct of smart business decisions – proof that the flywheel of transformation is now being powered by profitability considerations rather than by policy mandates.

And the next step is just beyond the horizon, as smart assets become autonomous. When buildings, grids and factories begin to operate with self-sustaining intelligence, they will unlock efficiencies far beyond what human oversight alone can manage.

An autonomous building doesn’t just respond to occupancy schedules – it learns them. It adjusts heating, cooling and lighting in real time to cut energy waste and improve comfort. An autonomous grid doesn’t wait for faults to occur – it predicts, prevents and avoids them by rerouting power dynamically and integrating distributed energy sources with minimal human intervention.

These are not unrealistic aspirations. Today’s smart assets already feature measurable gains in resilience, uptime and resource use.

Consider predictive maintenance: Sensors and AI models detect faults before they cause downtime, extending the life of equipment and cutting costs dramatically. Or take dynamic power line rating, which allows existing grids to carry more load based on real-time weather conditions – to expand capacity without new power lines.

In factories, automation orchestrates production flows around the clock, achieving higher throughput with less energy. These are pragmatic tools for stretching assets further, not speculative visions. Full autonomy will take those gains to the next level.

Of course, it’s not all sweetness and light. Not everyone will embrace this trajectory immediately. Autonomy comes with vulnerabilities: The threat of cyberattacks on critical systems and the danger of becoming overly dependent on data or on a handful of technology providers. Some worry about the potential of short-term disruption, the need for higher investment or uncertainty inherent in new ways of doing business.

Yet the risk of inaction is far greater. Standing still doesn’t just mean falling behind on climate goals; it means ceding the advantage to competitors who are already using digitalization to move faster, run leaner and seize market share. In today’s race, hesitation carries the highest price.

In the future, infrastructure will manage itself – adapting, optimizing and securing operations. This isn’t about replacing people; it’s about giving organizations the adaptive muscle to thrive in a volatile world.

Autonomous infrastructure will be faster, leaner and more resilient. And just like the flywheel, once these systems are in motion, they sustain and accelerate themselves, pulling entire industries forward. The question is no longer whether autonomy is coming – it’s how quickly you’re prepared to harness it.

The ITM 2025 makes clear: Today’s long-termists are tomorrow’s market leaders, which brings us back to the flywheel. The brightest minds in business agree on three things: digitalization cuts costs, it strengthens resilience, and it accelerates growth.

That’s why the toughest managers – the ones with a laser focus on profitability – are prepared to bet big on autonomy. Not only to protect the environment, but because they want to be the best, the fastest and the most efficient at what they do. The flywheel is spinning, and every turn now only makes it harder to stop.