Infrastructure in the 21st Century Is Both Physical and Digital--Preview in Washington DC on Wednesday, June 26

Infrastructure will always consist of structural pathways that allow for the safe and efficient transportation of people and goods.

But in addition, infrastructure is any pathway that allows individuals and their commerce to interact and transact with one another.  That is, not just roads and bridges, but also pipes, wires, airlanes, sealanes, and spectrum space.

In other words, infrastructure is any system that helps people do what they want to do--physically or virtually.   All these kinds of infrastructure are necessary, and any one piece of infrastructure is not much worth much if it is not connected to, and embedded within, the larger system.  

After all, the Internet, the Internet of Things, "white space," and everything else from Silicon Valley still depends on physical underpinnings--from the equipment itself, to its installation, to its power supply, to its maintenance--is dependent on physical things and physical players.

There's no such thing as a "dumb" road, or a "dumb" pipe.   Al there are pieces of the system, all synergistically connected.

And of course, no infrastructure system can exist without a political framework of custom, habits, laws and contract-enforcement.   It was Aristotle who said, "Man is a political being."  If he were alive today, Aristotle might add, "Infrastructure is a political being."

Back to the present-day: The illustration above is from Airbiquity, a cloud platform company based in Seattle that offers connectivity for cars and roadways.

Airbiquity is one of many companies participating in the Intelligent Transportation Society of America showcase on Capitol Hill in Washington DC tomorrow.