A series of conversations with some of the key leaders and influencers from across the UK infrastructure sector, produced and hosted by journalist and commentator Antony Oliver.
Latest episode
The Infrastructure Podcast: Episode 112
Guest: Tom Bartley, Director of Civil Infrastructure at AI scale-up Mind Foundry
Infrastructure's AI realities
In today's podcast we delve into the world of Artificial Intelligence to explore the future of infrastructure and technology - and the people reshaping both.
To do this we’re diving into one of the biggest - and most urgent - challenges facing the built environment: namely how we manage and maintain our ageing infrastructure in a world of rising costs, growing risks, and tightening resources.
Across the UK and beyond, roads, bridges, railways and public assets are showing their age. Traditional methods of inspection and maintenance are expensive, reactive, and often too slow to really move the dial and catch up decades of under-investment.
But there’s a quiet revolution underway - powered by artificial intelligence - that’s potentially changing how we understand and care for the structures we rely on every day.
And my guest today is someone right at the heart of that transformation.
Tom Bartley is Director of Civil Infrastructure at AI scale-up Mind Foundry and brings a deep understanding of both the engineering and the technology worlds. With past roles at WSP and Jacobs - and as co-founder of Barbal and dotBuiltEnvironment, he's spent his career championing digital transformation across planning, design, and delivery.
Now at Mind Foundry - a company born out of Oxford University research - he’s working to deploy responsible AI that helps asset owners predict risk, extend the life of critical infrastructure, and make better decisions, faster.
So let’s find out and explore how AI is being used on projects like HS2, ask what’s holding the sector back from adopting innovation, and see if Tom can convince us why human-AI collaboration - not replacement - is the key to building smarter, safer systems.
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The power behind The Infrastructure Podcast
Antony Oliver Consulting
Editorial consultancy services for the infrastructure sector
Antony works with a range of clients across the infrastructure sector, helping to boost their communication and marketing strategies and delivery so as to stimulate discussion and action in the industry.
This work includes:
- editorial support and creation
- event organisation, preparation and delivery
- round table discussion hosting and workshop/team facilitation
- video and podcasting
He has spent the last 30 years working as a journalist and editor across the infrastructure sector. Having joined New Civil Engineer magazine in 1994, he edited the title for 14 years until 2013, expanding NCE from a traditional paper magazine to deliver live events and conferences and then embrace the expanding world of multi-media digital delivery.
In 2014 he left NCE to create and launch Infrastructure Intelligence, a new digital-first publication for the sector, and for two years led and developed this ground-breaking media brand for the Association for Engineering and Consultancy.
He is a chartered civil engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, having started his career with Owen Williams and Partners and Balfour Beatty. He is committed to driving change across the UK infrastructure sector and is a Trustee of the Built Environment Trust and a Director of the Building Centre in Store Street, London.
antony@antonyoliver.com
The next episode of The Infrastructure Podcast will be published on Monday 5th May 2025.
