Welcome to the inaugural issue and the world of AI in Civil Engineering (AICE). This journal is the first international and prominent journal in the field of civil engineering focusing on intelligent design, construction and maintenance, with the aim of creating a new open-source academic arena to publish and share the latest research findings on the intersection of civil engineering and artificial intelligence. The journal provides a unique platform and home for researchers, scientists and engineers from an inter-disciplinary background to advance our understanding and knowledge for this exciting field of research.

Artificial intelligence, as the next generation driving force of a new round of industrial transformation and the strategic technology, leads the future development by integrating intelligent algorithms, computer vision, robotic systems, and other state-of-the-art technologies with the construction industry, to realize not only the transformation of the construction industry to Cyber-Physical System, but also the transformation of construction philosophy and paradigm, and to promote industrial upgrading and leapfrog development. Tongji University, as one of China’s earliest national universities, is a prestigious higher education institution. The civil engineering discipline in Tongji University consistently ranks the top in China in the past seventy years. Tongji University has been ranked world No.1 in the civil engineering by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) from 2017 to 2022 and by US News from 2021 to 2022. A new discipline: Intelligent Design Construction and Maintenance (IDCM), was established at Tongji University in 2015 and the corresponding undergraduate program was first officially approved by the Ministry of Education in 2017. The establishment of IDCM, combined with the construction volume in China, emblems the starting of a new direction in civil engineering. The IDCM is also the core of and engineering capability of AI in civil engineering. AI represents the intelligence while civil engineering covers the whole life-cycle of a project including design, construction and maintenance. The nature of the discipline IDCM is interdisciplinary with civil engineering as the base while integrating disciplines such as mechanical engineering, materials engineering, electronic information, engineering management and all other disciplines reflecting the enormous development of the construction industry in the intelligent era. Safety, economy, and sustainability are pursued in civil engineering, which is of no exception for IDCM. In addition, IDCM has been trying to achieve ultimate accuracy, efficiency, and robustness so as to really contribute to the development of construction industry. Along with the development of industry technology, construction industry has evolved from Construction 1.0 to Construction 4.0. The industrial revolution triggered by steam made the construction mechanized, which is the era of Construction 1.0; when the use of electricity has brought the construction industry into the era of 2.0, modular buildings with higher productivity and the large-scale application of assembly lines had become possible; the use of computer has brought the construction industry into the 3.0 era; at present, the integration of emerging technologies such as big data, Internet of Things, Virtual Reality with the construction industry has entered the era of Construction 4.0.

Construction 4.0, i.e. IDCM, includes four modules: (1) Intelligent planning and design: relying on artificial intelligence, mathematical optimization, and computer simulation of the human brain to carry out the intelligent architectural and engineering design that can meet the needs of user-friendliness characteristics; (2) Intelligent equipment and construction: with the development of heavy-duty robots, 3D printing and flexible manufacturing systems, the constrution sector has been transformed from labor-intensive to technology-intensive; (3) Intelligent facilities and disaster prevention: the production of intelligent sensing equipment and self-recovery materials make smart home, smart infrastructure, smart city operation and disaster prevention possible; and (4) Intelligent operation and maintenance and services: relying on the integration and R&D of technologies such as intelligent sensing, big data, cloud computing, and Internet of Things to realize the whole-life intelligent operation and the maintenance management of buildings and infrastructures.

AI-based research becomes one of the most advanced progress of the new era in the field of civil engineering, because it can not only solve problems efficiently but also provide alternative optimized solutions of completed problems. IDCM will promote the rapid development of the construction industry from multiple perspectives such as intelligent planning and design, intelligent equipment construction, and intelligent disaster prevention operation and life-cycle maintenance.

These new developments bring the call for an international academic platform to deliver the cutting-edge technology and establish joint research between civil engineering and artificial intelligence to worldwide scholars. The establishment of this journal is to meet this requirement. Therefore it is not only Tongji University’s honor to establish this periodical platform to promote publication of the latest research in IDCM, but also our responsibility to maintain the high quality of the articles. With much effort to seize the opportunities, Tongji University is enormously proud to launch a novel academic journal AICE, aiming at publishing the original and state-of-the-art papers in support of IDCM in three aspects: focusing on the development of new AI-algorithms and methods that address civil engineering challenges; emphasizing emerging and disruptive technologies that support a wide range of civil engineering applications; and presenting innovative, interdisciplinary and cutting-edge research for civil engineering system. The ultimate vision of the journal is to let researchers timely obtain the latest theoretical knowledge and practical advances in the field of IDCM with open access.

AICE publishes refereed research papers on all aspects pertaining to digital and computational technologies in civil engineering, with a particular focus on the advances and applications of AI. The scope and forthcoming issues include but not limited to the following categories: (1) Civil engineering objectives: structural engineering, infrastructure engineering, geotechnical engineering, bridge engineering, underground engineering, transportation, construction, environmental engineering, disaster mitigation, facility management; (2) Project life-cycle phases: engineering design and simulations; building information modelling (BIM) for planning, construction, and operation management; computational mechanics; development of materials, elements, and systems; intelligent construction technologies; disaster mitigation and engineering resilience; life-cycle assessment of AI-aided projects, products, and processes; (3) Different scales: livable building, district, community, city, and society, city information modelling (CIM); (4) Innovative and emerging technologies: computer vision, pattern recognition, machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, digital twin; autonomous system, automation, robotics; Internet of Things, heterogeneous data fusion and computing, big data; distributed computing, cloud computing, edge computing; virtual reality, enhanced display, visualization techniques; blockchain; metaverse; and (5) Other important issues: moral and ethical issues related to AI development and application; AI-enabled decision-support systems; artificial intelligence in civil engineering education.

AICE will publish papers in the form of original research and reviews to promote and accelerate the spread of theories and innovative applications of intelligent construction. The journal also invites a first-class international editorial team to maintain its high-quality and international dissemination.

AICE journals create a friendly knowledge hub where all global scholars can work together to promote the development of IDCM for making a better world for civil engineering. Meanwhile, the advancement of IDCM including big data analytics and intelligence in civil engineering would also generate and lead to the impact on the research of general AI, jointly creating a smarter and sustainable future for the human kind. This is just the beginning of the AI-related innovation of the civil engineering. Welcome to join us and enjoy the journey with fellow scholars to embrace a better world for civil engineering. We would love to hear from you on interesting research stories, proposals and perspectives. For detailed information, please refer to the AICE journal website (https://www.springer.com/journal/43503).