YIT in the forefront of developing Smart Building standards for more sustainable and user centric buildings - now powered by Microsoft Azure Digital Twins

YIT continues to strengthen the position in the Smart Building domain by partnering with Microsoft, RealEstateCore and Idun to accelerate the digitalisation of buildings.

RealEstateCore is a Swedish consortium of real estate owners, software houses, and research institutions that has developed a common language that will enable control over buildings and development of new services – a facilitator of the promises of a digital building, which understands its’ users and their needs throughout the life cycle of the building. Microsoft and RealEstateCore recently released an open source version of the ontology using Digital Twins Definition Language to accelerate the development of smart building and commercial real estate solutions with Azure Digital Twins.

“The co-operation enables us to create completely new digital and scalable services to our different customers and stakeholders, like investors, facility managers, tenants and end users throughout the whole life cycle. We clearly see a demand for new services both related to indoor air quality and energy efficiency in a broader way as well as end users and tenants looking for more personalised services based on data”, says YIT’s Head of offering and service development Anders Stenbäck.

“Currently the collection and utilisation of data in buildings is siloed and mainly used for a single purpose, like e.g. air-conditioning. The co-operation with Microsoft and RealEstateCore enables us to create new services by combining different sources of data in an efficient way into a digital twin of the building. With all relevant data collected from existing and new sensors into one place, the digital twin, we can for example optimize the air conditioning and air cleaning in an efficient way in different rooms based on their actual use”, explains YIT’s Head of Data and Analytics Mikko Kuusakoski.

YIT´s minority investments during this fall in the proptech companies Nuuka Solutions Oy and Iisy Oy combined with the partnership with Microsoft and RealEstateCore accelerates the company´s strategic focus in non-cyclical Partnership properties and services businesses.   

YIT is also part of the KEKO-ecosystem consortium together with KONE, Nokia and others where the objective is to build the global standard for smart building platforms.

“We clearly believe in a world with open standards and platforms where different players, both big and small, can come together to innovate and deliver new services based on data”, Kuusakoski says.

More information about Microsoft Azure Digital Twins and RealEstateCore
More information about the KEKO ecosystem

For further information, please contact:
Anders Stenbäck, VP, Offering and Services, YIT Corporation, tel. +358 (0)50 548 2234, anders.stenback@yit.fi
Johanna Savolainen, Communication Manager, YIT Corporation, tel. +358 (0)44 305 4594, Johanna.savolainen@yit.fi

YIT is the largest Finnish and a significant North European construction company and urban developer. We develop and build apartments and living services, business premises and entire areas. We are also specialised in demanding infrastructure construction. Together with our customers, our nearly 8,000 professionals are creating more functional, attractive and sustainable cities and living environments. We operate in 10 countries: Finland, Russia, Sweden, Norway, the Baltic countries, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. In 2019, our revenue was approximately EUR 3.4 billion. YIT Corporation's share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Oy. www.yitgroup.com