Building Infrastructure Is a Game for Giants

Keeping it running, especially the clean-energy grid, is where nimble start-ups now break in. Even the world’s richest countries suffer from chronic underinvestment in the things people rely on most, day to day. Germany’s railway services are a prime example.

Infrastructure is expensive to build, costly to maintain, reaps only belated returns for governments and politicians, often long after they have left or been booted out of office, and continues to be viewed as a non-starter for disruptors and start-ups given the perceived high cost of entry. There are, however, ways for start-ups to get their foot in the infrastructure door that go beyond pouring cement, and digitalisation is perhaps the most obvious.