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Having looked earlier this year at , in today’s Construction Briefing, it’s the turn of some of the world’s biggest contractors and developers.

Using the latest edition of International Construction’s Icon 200 list of the biggest companies around the world by annual revenue, we’ve trawled through their annual reports to examine how much they spend and where the money goes.

While it’s not intended to be a definitive list – some companies publish a group-wide figure for R&D investment that includes operations that don’t fit the definition of construction activities – it does give an indication of what companies spend, how that spend compared to previous years, and where their focus lies.

Here’s a list of what the nine biggest companies spent and what their research and development priorities are:

1) China State Construction (CSCEC)

CSCEC has built the Iconic Tower in Egypt’s new administrative capital (Image: CSCEC)

China State Construction’s annual report for 2023 still hasn’t been published but the company spent CNY 49.7 billion (US$6.8 billion) on research and development in 2022, on a revenue of nearly CNY 2.1 trillion (US$282.6 billion). The R&D spend was an increase of 24.3% on the previous year’s figure.

According to CSCEC’s interim report for 2023, it spent CNY 19.4 billion (US$2.7 billion) on R&D in the six months to 30 June 2023.

The enormous figure covers the full range of CSCEC’s activities, which include design, construction and land development, as well as equipment manufacturing, asset operation and property management. It is also a specialist developer of supertall buildings in China of 300m and above.

The company claims to have developed a scientific research system and to have undertaken four national R&D projects under China’s 14th ‘Five-year Plan’. It boasts two national scientific and technological innovation platforms: the State Key Laboratory of Green Building and the National Centre of Technology Innovation for Digital Construction, as well as five national-level enterprise technology centres.

Through its various research and development initiatives, the company claims to have developed more than 100 core technology products, including engineering materials, equipment and software. It has developed its own BIM software called AECMate that has been used in thousands of projects and undertaken initiatives in areas such as construction industrial robots and intelligent venues. It has also been exploring the utilisation of 5G and blockchain technology in the construction industry.

2) China Railway Group

The south main tower of Shuangliu Yangtze River Bridge on Xingang Expressway, constructed by China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group (Image: China Railway Group)

China Railway Group increased its research and development expenditure in 2023 by 8.1% to CNY 30 billion (US$4.1 billion), on a revenue of nearly CNY 1.3 trillion (US$173.7 billion).

It said it leveraged complex projects, including a series of high-speed rail schemes and bridge projects in China, the Brazil East-West Railway, and even the Zhongshan Station in Antarctica to perform research on a range of topics.

Those topics included: bridge survey and design theories and methods; new bridge structures and materials; intelligent bridge construction technologies and equipment; data-driven management of drill-and-blast tunnel engineering; research on key technologies and equipment for electrified highways; the intelligent assessment of service performance and technologies for the improvement of high-speed railway ballastless track-bridge structural systems; construction technologies for unmanned construction sites in transportation infrastructure; standardization of key components; and system status monitoring and performance evaluation for tunnel boring machines.

3) China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC)

CRCC’s biggest TBM main bearing yet has a diameter of 8.61 metres (Image: CRCC)

According to CRCC’s annual report for the year to 31 December 2023, the company spent CNY 26.7 billion (US$3.7 billion) on R&D in 2023, against revenue of over CNY 1.1 billion (US$156.5 billion). Its R&D spend in 2023 increased by 6.9% as compared to 2022.

The company led research on the utilisation of deep underground space for future industries and prepared a special implementation plan for the large-scale application of China’s satellite-based navigation system Beidou.

It also won approval to establish a ‘National Key Laboratory for Intelligent Construction and Maintenance of Geotechnical and Tunnel Engineering in Extreme Environments’. It developed what it claimed is the world’s largest shield TBM main bearing, with a diameter of 8.61m, to be used on high-altitude railway projects and deep-sea tunnels. It also developed what it claimed is the world’s largest shaft boring machine “Dream” with an excavation diameter of 23.02m , and an all-in-one machine for girder replacement, transport and erection called “Taihang”.

4) China Communications Construction (CCCC)

China Communications Construction (CCCC) spent a total of CNY 27.3 billion (US$3.8 billion) on research and development in 2023, up from CNY 23.5 billion (US$3.2 billion) the year before.

CCCC described the field of technology and industry competition as a “battleground”. It said that it wanted to tackle the issue of “scattered” research and development investments and give national-level innovation platforms a more significant role. Its aim with its research activities is to create an “edge over its peers” in areas such as smart ports, smart highways, smart water management and smart cities, according to its latest annual report.

The business claims to have 12 innovation platforms at national level and 87 at provincial level, as well as a further 31 at group level.

5) Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC)

Specialising in the planning, design and construction of major production facilities for nearly all the large- and medium-sized iron and steel enterprises in China, MCC spent CNY 19.7 billion (US$2.7 billion) on research and development in 2023, a 5.3% increase on the previous year.

While it specialises in metallurgical construction projects, more than 70% of MCC’s revenue comes from housing construction and municipal infrastructure projects.

MCC said it had made progress in green, low-carbon and efficient innovations in steel and metallurgy. It has also devised a three-year action plan to improve business systems, with more standardisation and use of digital management processes.

6) Vinci

Leonard is the name of the VINCI Group’s foresight platform and fast track for innovative projects (Image courtesy of Vinci)

France-based construction group Vinci said in its latest annual report that it is running 55 research and development programmes and has a €50 million (US$54 million) R&D budget.

The company has developed an ‘innovation and foresight platform’ called Leonard.

In 2023, Leonard’s work focused on emerging risks in the group’s various business, climate change adaptation, and the transformation in the mobility sector between now and 2050.

Meanwhile, several hundred employees at the company took training courses in artificial intelligence (AI), while others developed applications for the company’s AI programme in areas like generative design and predictive maintenance.

Leonard also helped to create the Bruno Latour Fund, set up by Paris university Sciences Po, which supports 10 research projects on environmental transitions, as well as continuing its financial support for other environmental research programmes.

The company also supports a think tank on urban transitions called La Fabrique de la Cité, which examines issues like efficient land use to address housing shortages, decarbonisation of roads and transport, and waterways.

7) Bouygues

Located on the site of the Bouygues Construction Matériel technical base in Chilly-Mazarin, in the southern outskirts of Paris, Scale One will be open to companies and institutional players from early 2025 (Image courtesy of Bouygues)

Bouygues expensed €71 million (US$77.3 million) worth of research and development costs in 2023, up from €63 million (US$69 million) in 2022.

It’s worth noting that the figure is for the entire Bouygues group, which includes operations relevant to construction such as Bouygues Construction, infrastructure contractor Colas, and property arm Bouygues Immobilier, but also incorporates non-construction-related businesses like its TF1 broadcast subsidiary.

In its financial report for the year, Bouygues Construction said it expected to see improvements in data capture and processing that would pave the way for digital twins, better workflow management, and a reduction in the gap between forecasts and outcomes.

It is exploring eco-construction methods and the use of innovative, low-carbon materials. That includes bio-sourced cladding materials under the BIO4EEB project that won Horizon Europe funding in early 2023. Bouygues has also set up Cyneo, a subsidiary dedicated to reusing construction materials, and developed the BYBlock prototype an all-in-one heating, hot water, ventilation and thermal/electrical storage solution for houses, apartment blocks and small office blocks.

Bouygues Construction has also been experimenting with concrete formulations to reduce carbon emissions for several years and has launched a new worksite lab called ScaleOne where it can deploy worksite solutions of the future in real-life conditions. Separately, Colas has a private R&D centre dedicated to road infrastructure called CORE Centre.

8) ACS Group

Spanish-based infrastructure company ACS Group, which owns Hochtief and Australia’s Cimic Group dedicated €25.8 million (US$28.1 million) to research and development investment.

It said the ultimate aim of its research was to identify materials that promote the resilience of infrastructure in response to increasingly extreme weather events resulting from climate change, as well as the re-use and better use of materials to reduce the consumption of raw materials.

It has also fostered alliances with different technological centres, research institutes and universities.

One example of the sort of projects ACS is involved in is the Climport R&D project, which sees a consortium involving ACS subsidiary Dragados working with FCC, Rover, Acciona Energia, Sener, Proes and IHCantabria. Its aim is to develop an innovative modular system with new professional methodologies on how to design and build port infrastructure adapted to climate change.

9) Shanghai Construction Group

While it wasn’t possible to obtain a figure on how much Shanghai Construction Group spends on R&D, the company has detailed some of the areas where it is conducting further research and development.

Within its building materials technology group, which has nearly 100 mixing stations with an annual output of over 45 million cubic metres of ready-mixed concrete, it is looking at different types of high-performance concrete. Those include innovative concrete pumping techniques for super-high-rise buildings, and prefabricated component production for super-high-rise buildings, subway tunnels, municipal construction, public buildings, industrial buildings and civil buildings.