What are the three pillars of i-Construction 2.0? A clear, easy-to-understand summary of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's policy

The three pillars of i-Construction 2.0 are the automation of construction operations, the automation of data linkage, and the automation of construction management. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism announced i-Construction 2.0 in April 2024 and set a target to reduce manpower on construction sites by at least 30%, that is, to increase productivity by 1.5 times, by fiscal year 2040. At the core of the ministry’s policy is taking a step beyond merely using ICT and automating the construction sites themselves.

If these three pillars are properly understood, i-Construction 2.0 becomes visible not as just a new buzzword but as a practical reform that links investigation and surveying, design, construction, inspection, and maintenance. What is particularly important is that the three pillars are not independent measures but an integrated initiative that simultaneously changes machine operations, the flow of data, and site management practices.

Table of Contents

• What is i-Construction 2.0?

• Why "Three Pillars" Now?

• 1st Automation of construction

• Second: Automation of data integration

• 3rd: Automation of Construction Management

• How do the three pillars interact?

• Key points that practitioners should keep in mind

• Outlook going forward

• Summary

What is i-Construction 2.0?

i-Construction is a measure to improve productivity at construction sites that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has been promoting since fiscal 2016. Under the conventional i-Construction, the goal has been to expand the use of ICT across the entire construction production process—from investigation and surveying to design, construction, inspection, maintenance, and renewal—and to improve productivity by 20% by fiscal 2025. In fact, MLIT materials show that introduction has progressed in 87% of eligible directly managed civil engineering projects where ICT construction can be implemented, and an average reduction in working time of about 21% compared with fiscal 2015 has been confirmed. Up to this point, it can be said to have been a phase of streamlining sites through the comprehensive introduction of ICT.

The next stage that has been organized is i-Construction 2.0. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism positions that the efforts to date will be insufficient to maintain construction capacity in the face of future population decline, and that it is necessary to shift the stage from "utilization of ICT, etc." to "automation." In other words, it is easiest to understand i-Construction 2.0 not as a repudiation of previous measures but as a deepened version that layers automation, data linkage, and remote operation on top of the foundation established by ICT-based construction and BIM/CIM.

As the data foundation, since FY2023 the principle of applying BIM/CIM has been advanced across all directly managed civil engineering work and construction. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism itself positions BIM/CIM as a mechanism to make it easier for clients and contractors to utilize and share data as it promotes automation of data linkage under i-Construction 2.0. Therefore, to understand i-Construction 2.0 it is insufficient to look only at automation of construction machinery; it must also be viewed to include standardization of three-dimensional data and business workflows.

Why "Three Pillars" Now?

The main reason the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism announced the three pillars is that the assumptions surrounding construction sites are changing significantly. In the text of i-Construction 2.0, it is stated that the total population will fall to 70% of its current level in 50 years, that the population aged 65 and over will make up roughly 40%, and that the working-age population will decline by 20% by 2040. In addition, in the construction industry the proportion of workers aged 55 and over is increasing at a level higher than the all-industry average, while the proportion aged 29 and under is growing only slowly, and large-scale retirement of older workers is expected. Because it is becoming difficult to assume that increasing the number of workers will be sufficient, systems that can operate with fewer people are needed.

Furthermore, the intensification and increasing frequency of disasters are progressing simultaneously with the aging of infrastructure. While there is a demand for faster recovery and reconstruction, the need for maintenance and management of roads, bridges, rivers, ports, and other facilities will continue to grow. In other words, the reality is that the workload will not lessen even as the number of people available to carry it out declines. Therefore, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism says it is necessary to transform the way work is done at construction sites themselves and to promote labor-saving by leveraging digital technologies and data. The three pillars are the organizing framework for implementing that transformation on-site.

Another important point is that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is linking the three pillars not merely to efficiency measures but also to ensuring safety and work-style reform. The goal of i-Construction 2.0 is not just to increase productivity by 1.5 times. It also envisions reducing fatal accidents at construction sites, the remote and off-site execution of outdoor work, working in comfortable environments, and creating opportunities for a diverse workforce to be active. In other words, the three pillars are not only aimed at reducing manpower, but are also policies to keep people away from hazardous locations and to make it easier to leverage experienced workers' knowledge remotely and via data.

1st: Construction Automation

The automation of construction, as the first pillar, is the easiest to envision. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) aims for a situation in which site information is collected by various sensors and, based on construction plans automatically generated using AI and similar technologies, a single operator manages the operations of multiple construction machines. The point here is not simply to make construction equipment more advanced, but to shift the assumption from people riding and operating each machine individually to people acting as supervisors and controllers. In addition, it includes establishing standardized safety rules, developing common control signals that can be used across different manufacturers, promoting the adoption of remotely operated construction machinery, and automating work vessels for maritime construction.

This pillar is not only about future full automation. At present, remote construction and optimization through the use of construction data are also important implementation phases. In fiscal year 2024, 21 remote construction projects were carried out on projects commissioned by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. In addition, four pilot automated-construction projects were conducted in fiscal year 2024, and a policy has been announced to expand the scope in fiscal year 2025 to include not only large-scale earthworks but also mountain tunnels. Ministry materials also present a case in which three supervisors continuously monitored 14 autonomous construction machines day and night, indicating that the division of roles at worksites has already begun to change.

Moreover, construction automation includes not only autonomous driving but also initiatives to optimize construction using on-site data. For example, a case has been reported in which visualizing the location information and operating status of dump trucks and backhoes and reviewing transport routes and machine capabilities increased daily construction output by 25%, shortened the overall schedule by 8 days, and reduced personnel by a total of 80 people. This shows that, without waiting for full automation, workforce reductions can be achieved simply by changing how the site is operated using data.

Practically speaking, what this pillar addresses is not simply whether construction equipment can be automated. It is about identifying where on-site waiting times occur, where dependence on skilled workers exists, and where tasks can be replaced by monitoring and control. The automation of construction should be understood not as making sites unmanned but as redesigning how operations are carried out so that people can concentrate on the decision-making tasks that truly require human judgment, which makes it easier to implement in practice.

Second: Automating Data Integration

Automation of data linkage, the second pillar, is the most easily misunderstood of the three pillars, yet in fact the most important. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism explains this as constructing an environment that digitizes and three-dimensionalizes the entire construction production process—from surveys and measurements, through design and construction, to maintenance—and makes it easy to obtain the necessary information in a form that can be processed when required. The purpose is clear: to eliminate repeated manual entry of the same data and to reduce unnecessary surveys and inquiries, restoration work, and the effort and waiting time involved in searching for documents.

At the core of this pillar is BIM/CIM. The aim of BIM/CIM is not simply to produce tidy 3D models. It is a foundation for integrated management—according to their intended uses—of 2D drawings, 3D models, point clouds, GIS, attribute information, and so on, and for creating a situation in which clients and contractors do not have to re-enter the same information separately. As part of its initiatives for fiscal 2025, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is advancing the formulation of BIM/CIM handling guidelines, the linkage between 3D models and 2D drawings, BIM/CIM-based cost estimation through standardization of attribute information, and document reduction through the use of field data. In short, automating data linkage is not about turning drawings into 3D, but about enabling data to be reused across processes.

This direction is reflected in concrete figures. In fiscal 2024, efforts were carried out in 86 cases to coordinate 3D models and 2D drawings, which is a prerequisite for using 3D models as contract documents. In fiscal 2025, work is progressing on creating and publishing a roadmap for using 3D models as part of contract documents, establishing rules for linkage verification, considering reductions in 2D drawings, and conducting pilot construction projects. The important point here is that 2D drawings will not disappear immediately; for the time being, things will proceed as a hybrid of 3D models and 2D drawings. For practitioners, it is more realistic not to assume that adopting 3D equals the immediate elimination of 2D drawings.

Furthermore, there are developments in the estimating field. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is promoting initiatives to directly utilize quantities automatically calculated from 3D models for estimating, and in fiscal 2024 it conducted 11 trials on bridge substructure works. Publicly released materials indicate that by using quantities from 3D models, data to be imported into estimating systems can be created semi-automatically, leading to reductions in quantity-calculation work based on 2D drawings and the prevention of transcription errors. This is a symbolic shift in which design, quantity calculation, estimating, and construction preparation are becoming not separate tasks but a continuous data flow.

From a practical standpoint, the essence of this pillar is to reduce on-site rework. Reaching agreement before construction, making decisions during construction, verifying things at inspection, and handing over after completion — in all these situations, recreating the same information multiple times is a loss. If you want to support i-Construction 2.0, the quickest path is to first review the flow of who creates data, where they create it, and how it will be reused in the next process. This is why, before automating machinery, simply organizing the flow of data often produces results more easily.

Third Installment: Automation of Construction Management

The third pillar, automation of construction management, aims to reduce labor by streamlining on-site verification, inspection, supervision, component fabrication, transportation, and installation through remoteization and off-site processes. In the text, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism states that, in addition to automation of construction and the utilization of digital data through BIM/CIM, it will advance automation of construction management in every situation—such as component fabrication, transportation, installation, and supervision/inspection—while employing new technologies. Measures are organized including the application of remote on-site inspections, image-analysis-based verification of rebar placement and as-built conditions, deployment of precast for large-scale structures, development of high-speed, large-capacity networks, and, in the use of satellite positioning technologies, promotion of data utilization compliant with the national coordinate system.

The important point here is that automation of construction management is not simply turning it into online meetings. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's fiscal 2025 materials indicate that the principle of applying remote on-site presence began in fiscal year Reiwa 6, and they show a direction toward realizing decision-making from comfortable offices through the use of precast components, remote supervision and inspection, and the development of high-speed networks. In other words, the core of this pillar is to reduce work that requires going to the site and, even when on-site confirmation is necessary, to redesign processes on the assumption of digital data and communication infrastructure.

A clear example of this pillar's effectiveness is the trials of supervision and inspection using digital data. Based on the trial results in fiscal year 2024, the guidelines were revised so that when supervision and inspection are carried out by overlaying as-built surface management data on-site, the creation and submission of as-built management charts are not required. By projecting construction-stage 3D models and as-built management charts on-site with AR and visually confirming the acceptability of the as-built conditions, stage confirmations and on-site inspections have become more efficient and faster, and some documentation has become paperless. This is a good example showing that digitizing construction management reduces the burden not only on-site but also in the back office.

Furthermore, some aspects of quality control are also being automated. Trials to replace part of the conventional on-site acceptance quality tests by photographing fresh concrete slump with a camera and analyzing the images with AI began in fiscal year 2023 (Reiwa 5) on nationwide directly managed construction projects, and 11 trials were conducted in fiscal year 2024 (Reiwa 6). It is easier to understand the automation of construction management if you think of it not merely as a way to make inspections easier, but as a trend to reorganize the very methods of ensuring quality around a digital starting point.

How do the three pillars work together?

The three pillars of i-Construction 2.0 can produce effects when introduced separately, but they truly become effective when they work in concert. Even if you only advance automation of construction, if design data are in a format that construction machinery can't use, or inspections revert to paper, it will be difficult to achieve labor reduction across the whole site. Conversely, when design, construction, and inspection data are connected through BIM/CIM, site data are fed back to construction machines in real time, and verification of the finished form can be done via AR and point clouds, the three pillars—construction, data, and management—become a single flow.

Put simply, the first pillar is "automation of construction tasks," the second is "automation of information transfer," and the third is "automation of verification and operation." On construction sites, if any one of these three lags behind, things will ultimately have to be reconciled manually. The reason the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism organized them as three pillars is that, to seriously advance labor-saving on site, the three areas of machinery, data, and management must be changed simultaneously. This is a very important practical perspective.

Key Points that Practitioners Should Keep in Mind

What practitioners need to grasp first is not to narrowly regard i-Construction 2.0 as merely "large-scale automated construction." Looking at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's published content, entry points are diverse: remote construction, automated construction, BIM/CIM-based quantity estimation, linkage between 3D and 2D, AR inspections, image analysis of quality tests, and so on. If you map this to your company or your site, the first things to tackle are to identify processes that repeatedly cause the same rework, documents that always require the same transcription, and inspection tasks that always impose the same travel burden. Thinking about which of the three pillars to apply to those areas makes the priorities for implementation easier to see.

Next, it is important not to postpone data standardization. Automation of construction attracts attention, but in practice, if design data cannot be used in the next process, the handover of point clouds and attribute information is unclear, or the handling of contract documents is not organized, corrections will ultimately have to be made manually. This is precisely why the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) is focusing on linking 3D models and 2D drawings and on standardizing attribute information for use in quantity estimation. In many cases, organizing data formats and operational rules is more effective on-site than flashy equipment investment.

Also, it's more realistic not to expect 2D drawings to disappear right away. Even in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's 2025 materials, while a direction toward formalizing 3D models as contractual documents is indicated, it is clear that, for the time being, the plan is to proceed with a hybrid approach alongside 2D drawings. Therefore, in on-site practice, the pragmatic solution is to advance in stages from the perspective of how to reduce the dual management of 2D and 3D, which drawings can be replaced by 3D, and where to introduce automated checks.

Furthermore, the concepts of positioning and coordinates will become increasingly important going forward. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism explicitly states that it will promote the use of satellite positioning technologies for automating construction management and the utilization of data conforming to the national coordinate system. If 3D data, as-built data, machine control, and inspection results are handled consistently on site, positional accuracy and coordinate alignment become the foundation. If i-Construction 2.0 is to be pursued seriously, measurement technologies should not be separated as standalone tasks but regarded as the infrastructure that links construction, management, and inspection.

Future Outlook

i-Construction 2.0 is not at the stage of merely reading already published policy documents. In February 2026, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism launched a working group to promote the use of physical AI and AI robotics, and announced it will accelerate discussions toward further labor-saving, improved safety, and the advancement of maintenance and management, including transformation of construction processes. This suggests that construction automation will become increasingly sophisticated and that AI will likely play a deep role in site planning and execution support.

Similarly, in March 2026 the 15th BIM/CIM Promotion Committee was held, and it was announced that the implementation contents for fiscal year Reiwa 7 and the future direction would be discussed toward realizing automation of data linkage, a top-runner measure of i-Construction 2.0. In other words, among the three pillars, data linkage in particular can be seen as a core area where the development of systems, standards, guidelines, and operations will continue to advance.

In the port sector as of February 2026, topics such as automation of marine construction, expanding the application of AI to improve the efficiency of seafloor surveys, and revisions to BIM/CIM utilization guidelines have been raised. Looking at these developments, it is appropriate to understand that the three pillars of i-Construction 2.0 are not just about earthworks nor intended only for major firms, but a cross-sectoral policy package that will be progressively implemented.

Summary

The three pillars of i-Construction 2.0 are the automation of construction work, the automation of data linkage, and the automation of construction management. Through these three pillars, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism aims not simply to improve efficiency at construction sites but to transform them into work systems that allow a smaller workforce to operate safely, comfortably, and with high productivity. The targets are a 30% reduction in personnel by fiscal year 2040 and a 1.5-fold increase in productivity.

From a practical standpoint, the starting point is to first identify on your company's sites where processes depend on manual labor, where there is manual data entry, and where there are burdens from movement or verification. Rather than optimizing construction, data, and management separately, it is important to redesign them as an integrated workflow. In particular, whether positioning information and three-dimensional data that conform to the national coordinate system can be incorporated into site operations seamlessly is likely to become a differentiating factor going forward. In that sense, systems like LRTK, which make it easier to incorporate high-precision positioning information and digital measurement into daily site work, are well suited as an entry point to advance implementation in the i-Construction 2.0 era.