America’s infrastructure is at a turning point. From coast to coast, roads, bridges and utilities continue to show their age – strained by decades of underinvestment, rapid population growth and increasing extreme weather patterns. But the answer isn’t simply to fix or rebuild – it’s to build, maintain and repair smarter. As demands evolve and accelerate, the challenge is not just expansion – it’s transformation.
According to Nathan Creech, President of CRH Americas, we need infrastructure that’s smarter, more resilient, more resource-efficient and designed for the future. That means rethinking how we maintain and build with better strategy, more advanced materials, more collaboration and foresight. The future of infrastructure needs an expanded vision.
Read on for Nathan’s perspective on how the onshoring movement is reshaping America’s industrial future and modern infrastructure is key to its success.
Underinvestment with Decades of Neglect
After decades of under investment, America’s infrastructure needs modernization. This includes everything from roads and water to energy and data. Nationwide, some 38% of major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, with more than 42,000 bridges in desperate need of investment. Due to outdated water systems, the U.S. loses nearly 20% of treated water, or 2 trillion gallons annually, at a cost of $6.4 billion per year. The U.S. Department of Energy reported this year that the country is increasingly vulnerable to blackouts over the next five years. Further, we will need to install fiber faster than ever before, deploying as much fiber in the next five years as has been installed in the U.S. to date, according to the Fiber Broadband Association.
Altogether, the ASCE’s 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, the U.S. faces a $3.7 trillion infrastructure investment shortfall at current funding levels, and our infrastructure is disconnected. Critical systems are built and operated in isolated silos, lacking integration and coordination across geographies, systems and networks.
Onshoring as a Catalyst
Yet these challenges present opportunities. A powerful trend in favor of substantial investment has emerged — the onshoring movement. Dedicated to bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., onshoring is fast emerging as a national priority. It’s easy to see why. Volatile supply chains that stretch across continents are becoming riskier making dependence on manufacturing overseas more unattractive. The promise of stable, well-paid jobs reinforces this momentum.
However, America isn’t prepared to support such large-scale re-industrialization. Even with new warehouses, data centers and battery plants under construction, the surrounding infrastructure is lagging. America needs greater planning and collaboration, and a significant investment in critical systems that will support its re-industrial renewal. Roads, bridges, airports, railways and ports must be modernized to handle increased freight and logistics. Energy grids and water systems must be rebuilt to serve industrial realities. High-speed broadband must be deployed for smart factories, remote working and rural development.
This foundational infrastructure will act as the backbone of America’s re-industrialization. Our initial challenge is not how much infrastructure we need to build, nor how fast we can build it, but rather how to build it.
Smart Infrastructure by Design
Building infrastructure that is smart, integrated, adaptive and resilient requires us to see how we can leverage the near-term construction requirements of the contractor with long-term operational needs of the owner and user. For companies operating across industrial, residential and infrastructure sectors, this is a generational opportunity to build smarter and create future-ready infrastructure that’s resilient by design. We must think differently, to build differently. This includes prioritizing:
- Resource efficiency: Highways and bridges that are built with improved materials can endure more extreme weather, handle increased traffic and greater weight, and reduce maintenance and total lifecycle costs. By improving mix formulations, we can produce concrete with less waste; by using sensors in the concrete mix as it is being placed, we can optimize installation and material performance with real-time data.
- Durable materials: By utilizing innovative materials and construction techniques we can reduce waste, extend pavement lifespans and improve performance. This, in turn, improves the fuel efficiency of every vehicle that travels over that asphalt roadway.
- Greater connectivity: Energy grids that have redundancies built into them will reduce outages. Smart grids leverage fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewable sources of energy and are adaptable so the energy supply is not interrupted. Broadband is only as useful as defined by ‘the last mile,’ and we need to ease installation to reach more rural communities, enable smart factories, remote working and online learning at scale.
- Water security: Water management systems must function with simultaneous objectives including managing stormwater, treating wastewater and preserving drinking water across ecological systems. These systems must do this at greater capacity in less space than ever before. Above all we must protect our water supply and continue leveraging technology like sensors that detect leaks to identify problems before they happen.
A Future Built with Reinvention
The path forward isn’t paved with more of the same – it’s shaped by innovation, integration and long-term thinking. With the onshoring movement as our catalyst, this is our moment to reimagine and reinvent the systems that power our economy and anticipate the needs of tomorrow. Only by investing in smarter, integrated, adaptive and more resilient infrastructure can we unlock the full potential of American manufacturing and ensure the economic benefits of onshoring become a reality.