Bentley Systems Acquires 3D Geospatial Company Cesium

By: Bentley Systems, Incorporated via Business Wire

September 06, 2024 at 08:53 AM EDT

Combination of Cesium plus iTwin offers developers the most comprehensive digital platform for the built and natural environment

Bentley Systems, Incorporated (Nasdaq: BSY), the infrastructure engineering software company, today announced it has acquired 3D geospatial company Cesium. Cesium is recognized as the foundational open platform for creating powerful 3D geospatial applications, and its 3D Tiles open standard has been widely adopted by leading enterprises, governments, and tens of thousands of application developers globally. Cesium ion, the company’s SaaS platform, brings 3D geospatial experiences to more than 1 million active devices every month, while Cesium's open-source offerings have more than 10 million downloads.

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Example of a design review process leveraging the Cesium integration with iTwin Platform (Photo: Bentley Systems)

Bentley’s iTwin Platform powers digital twin solutions that are used by engineering and construction firms and owner-operators to design, build, and operate the world’s infrastructure. The combination of Cesium plus iTwin enables developers to seamlessly align 3D geospatial data with engineering, subsurface, IoT, reality, and enterprise data to create digital twins with astonishing user experiences that scale from vast infrastructure networks to the millimeter-accurate details of individual assets—viewed from land, sky, and sea, from outer space to deep below the Earth’s surface.

Bentley CEO Nicholas Cumins said, “A 3D geospatial view is the most intuitive way for owner-operators and engineering services providers to search for, query, and visualize information about infrastructure networks and assets. With the combined capabilities of Cesium and iTwin, infrastructure professionals can make better informed decisions in full 3D geospatial context—all within a single, highly performant environment.”

Patrick Cozzi, CEO of Cesium, continued, “Joining Bentley marks an important milestone for Cesium as we continue our journey to create the best developer platform for the built and natural environment—founded on open standards and open-source technologies. The combined power of our two organizations and our shared commitment to openness will provide new opportunities for growth and create greater value for an already flourishing developer ecosystem that ranges from small start-ups to global enterprises.”

An example is Komatsu, the largest construction equipment manufacturer in Japan, and the second largest in the world, which uses Cesium’s 3D geospatial technology to monitor construction sites globally, track changes over time, compare architectural plans with real-world data, and run precise and near real-time measurements. With Cesium integrated into Bentley, Komatsu gains expanded access to world-leading digital twin technology.

Chikashi Shike, executive officer, Smart Construction Promotion Division, Komatsu Ltd., commented, “Komatsu and Cesium brought novel thinking to the construction industry by leveraging advanced visualizations to deliver more precise insights and enable our customers to make better, more informed construction decisions. With Cesium as part of Bentley, we can further enrich our Smart Construction digital twins with engineering models, subsurface data, and more, for safer and more efficient construction projects.”

In addition to the widespread adoption of its platform, Cesium is also a leader in promoting open standards, such as 3D Tiles for visualizing massive 3D geospatial data, which was adopted as a community standard by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) in 2019.

Peter Rabley, CEO of OGC, said, “As infrastructure sectors become more data-centric, the importance of an open ecosystem will only increase. As the leading voice for open standards and interoperability in the geospatial community, OGC welcomes the ongoing commitment of Bentley and Cesium to solve global challenges through open, interoperable platforms.”

With the acquisition, Cozzi was named Bentley’s chief platform officer, leading the development of the combined Cesium and iTwin platform offerings, reporting to Bentley’s CTO Julien Moutte.

The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Dechert LLP acted as legal advisor to Bentley in the transaction.

For additional executive insights, please visit the Bentley Insights & Inspirations blog and the Cesium blog.

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About Bentley Systems

Bentley Systems (Nasdaq: BSY) is the infrastructure engineering software company. We provide innovative software to advance the world’s infrastructure – sustaining both the global economy and environment. Our industry-leading software solutions are used by professionals, and organizations of every size, for the design, construction, and operations of roads and bridges, rail and transit, water and wastewater, public works and utilities, buildings and campuses, mining, and industrial facilities. Our offerings, powered by the iTwin Platform for infrastructure digital twins, include MicroStation and Bentley Open applications for modeling and simulation, Seequent’s software for geoprofessionals, and Bentley Infrastructure Cloud encompassing ProjectWise for project delivery, SYNCHRO for construction management, and AssetWise for asset operations. Bentley Systems’ 5,200 colleagues generate annual revenues of more than $1 billion in 194 countries.

About Cesium

Cesium is the open platform for 3D Geospatial. Cesium created 3D Tiles, the Open Geospatial Consortium community standard for streaming massive 3D geospatial datasets. Use Cesium ion to optimize, host, and combine your data with curated global 3D content and stream to any device. With unique expertise at the intersection of 3D geospatial and computer graphics, Cesium is deeply committed to openness and interoperability through open standards, open APIs, and open source offerings like CesiumJS, Cesium for Unreal, Cesium for Unity, and Cesium for Omniverse. Originally built for Aerospace, Cesium is now used to power thousands of applications in industries like Defense, Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations, Commercial real estate, urban planning, and more.

© 2024 Bentley Systems, Incorporated. Bentley, the Bentley logo, AssetWise, Bentley Infrastructure Cloud, Bentley Open, iTwin, MicroStation, ProjectWise, Seequent, and SYNCHRO are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries.