Center for Smart Infrastructure Finance
Center for Smart Infrastructure Finance
Megatrends drive Motivation
Digital delivery of infrastructure assets and services
Infrastructure Redefined
Automation and digitalization have expanded infrastructure value chains to include information architecture that serves to operate, maintain, and create value-added services for resilience of the underlying intelligent asset.
Digital Business Models
The integration of IoT in the design, construction and operation of smart infrastructure systems, is resulting in new data-driven business and revenue models, including transformation of CAPEX to SaaS-like OPEX. projects.
Data-Driven Financing
Smart infrastructure can be financed beyond traditional debt and equity investments to include IoT-informed bonds, risk transfer models, data securitization, and tokenization of ESG and performance data.
Master of Engineering in Smart Infrastructure Finance
Exploring how financial technologies enable next generation affordable infrastructure delivery
Value Proposition
Municipal budgets are stressed, emerging economies seek efficient solutions for infrastructure buildout, demand-driven business and service models are growing, blockchain tokenization is starting to disrupt financing, and ESG integration is mainstreaming while benefitting the cost of financing.
How is next-generation resilient infrastructure financed? What are the new revenue models? Which public-private partnership (PPP) contracts can successfully leverage digital delivery?
This hybrid program is intended for engineering, business, policy and law students. Learn how to integrate big data analytics, financial modeling and business model testing across a wide range of infrastructure systems.
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Projects
Digital delivery of infrastructure assets and services
ESG and Green Premiums in Bond Pricing
Summary: Building models and testing the impact of ESG disclosures and green bond issues across thematic areas and industry sectors on pricing impacts in the primary and secondary markets using statistical models.
Sponsor: Nuveen and Conference of Great Lakes Governors
Leads: Dan Li and Chenwu Liao
Water Risk Pricing in Equities & Indexes
Summary: Water is an economic production factor for corporations in all sectors. We develop operational CRM and capital markets indicators to price water risk in share price behavior and corporate financial accounting.
Sponsor: Kurita Water Industries and Equarius Risk Analytics
Leads: Mingyan Tian, Iulia Mogosanu (Harvard), Tad Slawecki
Infrastructure Asset Tokenization
Summary: Financing is tied to understanding the performance risk of the project. Asset tokenization provides transparency, liquidity, integration of ESG metrics and engagement of retail and efficient investors.
Sponsor: UBRI and internal
Lead: Yifeng Tian, University of Florida
Demand-Driven Harbor Financing
Summary: The Nation's water-based logistics is governed by Congressional appropriation. We sought to reinventing financing mechanisms using demand-driven (infrastructure bank-type) opportunity cost funding structures.
Sponsor: US Army Corps of EngineersLead: Dennis Sugrue, PhD (currently at West Point)
Capital Conditioning for Sustainable Agricultural Financing
Summary: Agricultural impact on nutrient runoff and climate change is significant. Instead of government subsidies, this project develops asset pricing models to engage the capital markets to drive behavioral change.
Sponsor: Great Lakes Protection Fund
Lead:s: Kenneth Chung, David LeZaks (Croatan Institute), Jon Allan, Ravi Anupindi
Financial Technology for Industrial Renewal
Summary: The emergence of connected infrastructures requires understanding of financial network maps across the ecosystem of enterprises engaged in renewal. Multi-asset financial models (MARFs) are required.
Sponsor: Finnish Government and Great lakes Governors
Leads: Peter Adriaens and Antti Tahvanainen
Business and Financing Models for Connected Vehicle Integration
Summary: The scaled deployment of connected vehicles will require new business (revenue) and financing models under innovative data-driven P3 contracts that leverage public infrastructure assets.
Sponsor: Ford Motor Cy and UofM
Leads: Qiyan Liu, Andrew Richardson, Ben Shale, and Jake Uchitelle-Cohen
Example Partners and Collaborators
Financing - Technology - Construction - Consulting
UM FinTech Collaboratory
Since 2018, the Center, along with its UM partners at the Ford School for Public Policy - Center on Finance, Law and Policy and and the Ross School of Business - FinTech Initiative have been funded by Ripple-UBRI (University Blockchain Research Initiative) to develop product innovations related to cryptocurrencies and digital payments.
The UM FinTech Collaboratory focuses on the development of an educational, research and outreach ecosystem to build capacity and strength, and develop the digital fintech workforce of the future for a wide range of societal applications such as financial inclusion, public infrastructure funding, and supply chain management.
Student leadership such as Blockchain at Michigan and community outreach and engagement programs such as the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneur project (DNEP) focus on peer-to-peer student training to build decentralized applications (Dapps) and finding fintech solutions for small business owners.
B@M peer to peer training to build Dapps
DNEP students meet with business owners
