Perspective: The Cyber Frontier and Infrastructure

The accelerating integration of cyber technologies into physical infrastructure systems has radical implications for the operation, management, and vulnerabilities of our critical systems. Viewing the embedding of smart technologies in infrastructure as simply an interconnectedness of systems is insufficient. The acceleration of the coupling may represent a profound shift in the relationships between humans and their services. It lays the groundwork for explosions of artificial intelligence, new capacities for services, radical changes in efficiency, and new vulnerabilities. Yet we continue to approach infrastructure design and management with principles that don't reflect this new paradigm. To frame the challenges associated with modernizing infrastructure for accelerating cyberphysical relationships, we describe the new capabilities and vulnerabilities, and changes in approaches and thinking that are needed for the emerging complexity. We conclude by describing how infrastructure education and training will need to fundamentally shift from a focus on managing complicated physicals systems to working within complex cyberphysical systems that are likely to be governed by software.