‘Rubber hits the road’ on AI startups: Suffolk’s tech leader

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Jit Kee Chin has his eye on a stack of revamped technology next year.

Chin, the chief technology officer of Boston-based Suffolk Construction, has previously said yes Ok to be a fast follower when it comes to implementing technology. Now, he’s tracked down which sectors of construction technology are heating up and why one in particular fell by the wayside.

Here, Chin talks to Construction Dive about artificial intelligence, robotics, what Suffolk is looking at in its technology stack, and his predictions for 2025.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

CONSTRUCTION DIVER: What are you currently seeing in the contech space?

JIT KEE CHIN: AI continues to grow. If last year was more about general AI and co-pilot, I think this year we’re seeing more variety and certainly some of the younger companies are expanding. They’re not to scale yet, but they’re more than a piece of paper and an idea.

We’re starting to see this wave of AI startups really hit, and probably hitting where the rubber hits the road.

We looked at AI a lot. We’re adopting, at enterprise scale, AI solutions that simplify how project teams interact with their information.

We’re testing solutions that allow you to search and retrieve, that allow you to query information in a pretty big way.

There is always more to learn about AI.

What are some technologies you want to learn more about?

I think robotics is really interesting. I think we’re now in the phase of “Hey, is this really going to be adopted and scaled?” and you see some use cases getting traction. Many are stuck in the pilot phase, and don’t necessarily go beyond that.

I just read a piece looking in depth at robotics, because I was a little curious to see, are there construction robots here or not? But how big is it really becoming? I think the jury is still out.

A second trend we saw is an interesting approach to materials.

We have always looked at the materials. I won’t say we’re experts, but the focus on embodied carbon and the fact that embodied carbon is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, which historically has received very little focus, I think that’s changing.

We’ve been looking at the low-carbon materials space for a couple of years now, and we’re starting to see a lot more activity there.

If you pick another category, like IoT sensors and devices, I think the hype has fallen off IoT devices now. There was a time when they were really hot.

Why do you think the hype for IoT devices died?

I think the infrastructure requirements in IoT in general, the need for broadband or some kind of network, mesh network, has always been a little difficult to build, because that means you have to build that infrastructure up front.

The second set of issues is what the sensor is tied to. If you’re talking about worker sensors, which people tried to measure, they mainly tried to measure productivity. Many people say it was for security reasons. There was only great resistance to the adoption of a sensor from the workers themselves, especially in the union environment.

So none of them really took off.

Sensors that are meant to monitor the environment, these, in some cases, were successful. Things that control the environment for particles, temperature or heat, and other things. I think they still get used, but not systematically, because in many builds you might not need it.

It’s the value-cost calculation that people have.

Are there non-workplace applications that Suffolk is testing?

Clearstory, formerly called Extracter, which does the timing. Construction constantly struggles with timing and submitting timesheets and payment.

What we’re really excited about, and this is still pre-funnel, is recruiting. One of our BOOST technology accelerator companies, Kaya, we’re actively working with now, because they have an AI-enabled way to get you an automated purchase and delivery record.

We all know that a lot of schedule delays come from procurement delays, and it’s a lot to keep calling the sub and finding out, “Hey, when’s this stuff coming?” Then you have a manual delivery log that you have to tie into your contributions and tie into your calendar. This is a workflow that is ripe for streamlining.