European Union supports sustainability of construction industry with the BUILDCHAIN project: Bringing trustworthy knowledge exchange using the Decentralized Knowledge Graph

OriginTrail
OriginTrail
Published in
4 min readJan 12, 2023

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Trace Labs, a Web3 development company, joins EU’s efforts to create a smarter and more sustainable built environment with the BUILDCHAIN project. Together with eleven other partners from Slovenia, Italy, Spain, Greece, Hungary, and Serbia, Trace Labs will use the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG) to build a trusted knowledge base aiming to improve efficiency, reduce errors, and increase transparency and trust, ultimately leading to more sustainable construction projects.

Construction industry lacks trustworthy data exchange

Efficient, transparent, and trusted data exchange is a powerful tool for driving sustainability, resilience, and energy efficiency in construction, however there are several obstacles for trusted data exchange in this industry today:

  • Data silos: Construction projects involve multiple parties and stakeholders, each of which may have their own systems for storing and sharing information. This can lead to data silos and lack of coordination, which can make it difficult to access and trust the data.
  • Lack of standardization: Different construction projects may use different formats for storing and sharing data, which can make it difficult to compare and combine information from different projects.
  • Data security: Construction projects often involve sensitive information, such as building plans, materials lists, and inspection results. Ensuring that this information is kept secure and protected from unauthorized access can be a significant challenge.
  • Lack of incentives: There are often few incentives for construction companies and other stakeholders to share data and collaborate on projects, which can make it difficult to establish trust and transparency.

BUILDCHAIN to create a complete overview of the building life-cycle

Having received financial support from the European Union, BUILDCHAIN aims to develop technological solutions that will enhance data exchange and transparency in the industry and overcome the above-mentioned obstacles. Over the three-year period, the key innovative players in construction engineering, architecture, and research will build a knowledge base that will be used by various actors to trace all activities related to the complete life-cycle of buildings.

Trace Labs’ main contribution will be the integration of OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG) with the existing EU Digital Building LogBook system, creating a new powerful knowledge base with blockchain and artificial intelligence capabilities. The DKG will provide a tamper-proof and decentralized database that can be accessed by all parties involved in a building’s life cycle, including architects, contractors, building owners and regulators. This helps increase transparency, trust, and collaboration among all stakeholders through:

  • Connected knowledge assets as digital twins: DKG will provide an open, single source of truth for all building-related data, including plans, materials, inspection results, and more. This will make it easy for all parties to discover, access, and update the information in real time, improving communication and collaboration.
  • Data verification: Using blockchain technology, all data added to the DKG is fingerprinted and cannot be tampered with, ensuring authenticity of the data of the building’s life cycle.
  • Predictive maintenance: AI and machine learning can be used to analyze data from the DKG to identify patterns and predict future outcomes, such as maintenance needs. This can help improve building maintenance and reduce downtime.
  • Compliance and regulations: DKG can be used to ensure compliance with building codes and regulations by storing all relevant information in a standardized way and making it accessible to regulators in real time.

Driving value and technological advancement for construction industry

The advancements and benefits of building information modeling, automation, and digitalization encourage the development of more effective and efficient building information management. Given the fact that the global Building Information Modeling market is worth $14,7 billion and is predicted to grow to $53 billion by 2031, the BUILDCHAIN project enables the possibility of great value creation and a strong impact on sustainability of the entire sector.

Project information available here: BUILDCHAIN Project | Fact Sheet

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme, Climate Neutral, Circular and Digitiesed Production 2022, under grant agreement No 101092052.

👇 More about OriginTrail 👇

OriginTrail is an ecosystem dedicated to making the global economy work sustainably by organizing humanity’s most important knowledge assets. It leverages the open source Decentralized Knowledge Graph that connects the physical world (art, healthcare, fashion, education, supply chains, …) and the digital world (blockchain, smart contracts, Metaverse & NFTs, …) in a single connected reality driving transparency and trust.

Advanced knowledge graph technology currently powers trillion-dollar companies like Google and Facebook. By reshaping it for Web3, the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph provides a crucial fabric to link, verify, and value data on both physical and digital assets.

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👇 More about Trace Labs👇

Trace Labs is the core developer of OriginTrail — the open source Decentralized Knowledge Graph. Based on blockchain, OriginTrail connects the physical world and the digital world in a single connected reality by making all different knowledge assets discoverable, verifiable and valuable. Trace Labs’ technology is being used by global enterprises (e.g. over 40% of US imports including Walmart, Costco, Home Depot are exchanging security audits with OriginTrail DKG) in multiple industries, such as pharmaceutical industry, international trade, decentralized applications and more.

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OriginTrail
OriginTrail

OriginTrail is the Decentralized Knowledge Graph that organizes AI-grade knowledge assets, making them discoverable & verifiable for sustainable global economy.