MONTREAL — Artificial intelligence offers a critical tool for engineering firms looking to improve efficiency and polish their product, rather than representing a threat to jobs or companies, says WSP Global CEO Alexandre L’Heureux.
Amid an industrywide labour shortage, crumbling infrastructure and increasing project complexity, AI can inject value into areas ranging from design to data analytics and “scenario analysis,” he said Thursday.
“I don’t see this being a disrupter, in the sense that this will reduce hours or reduce the work we need to do,” he told analysts on a conference call. “I don’t see our revenue stream shrinking.
“I see this as a tool that will be able to augment the work that we’re providing for clients today,” he said.
Capacity is already strained across the sector, as baby boomers retire and the pool of engineers grows a meagre one per cent per year globally, L’Heureux said -- though WSP’s own workforce is poised to increase organically by up to seven per cent this year, he added.
“There is a major infrastructure deficit globally, and having a tool that will be in a position to accelerate the design of our assets -- I think it’s a great thing,” he said.
That productivity will be critical at WSP, which notched a record backlog of $19.7 billion at the end of its first quarter, up 19 per cent from a year earlier.
Recent wins include a design contract for a new bus line in greater Seattle, fresh project mandates for a Glencore mine in Argentina and a deal to design exploratory tunnels deep under the Alps for Europe’s Lyon-Turin high-speed rail line, now under construction.
In February, the Montreal-based firm closed its acquisition of Connecticut-based TRC Cos., which counts 7,000 workers, making WSP the largest engineering outfit in the U.S. by revenue, it says.
Its employees now number about 82,500, versus 72,600 a year ago and 7,000 five years ago, when it sat on the cusp of a head-spinning streak of acquisitions and organic growth.
To extend that expansion, L’Heureux has pointed to demand for construction of the facilities needed to power AI.
“We have seen a major shift, for instance, from sustainability studies to now really focusing most of our environmental team on the power and energy sector. That’s obviously driven by electrification, rising load growth and data centres,” he said, referring to the American market.
As for software, L’Heureux cited the example of an AI-empowered environmental management platform dubbed Nature Vista.
“It can give asset owners a single live view of their biodiversity and environmental obligations across the project life cycle from impact assessment through ongoing monitoring, reporting and disclosure,” he said.
Questions remain about spending on transportation and the power grid in the U.S. more than a year after President Donald Trump ordered agencies to stop paying money authorized in a massive infrastructure bill signed by his predecessor.
The US$1.2-trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has seen roughly half of that amount actually allocated since it was signed in 2021, and far less paid out. The law is set to expire at the end of September.
WSP executives waved off concerns the U.S. government was closing the cash spigot.
“We’re hearing about the desire of the current administration to keep on pushing on the basic infrastructure,” said chief financial officer Alain Michaud.
“At this point we don’t see any signs at our client level of significant slowdown on anything.”
In the quarter ended March 27, WSP reported flat year-over-year profits of $144.1 million and revenue growth of four per cent to $4.55 billion.
On an adjusted basis, net earnings per share rose to $2.21 from $1.76 the year before, beating analysts’ expectations of $2.07 per share, according to financial markets firm LSEG Data & Analytics.
“AI is underpinning strong growth across its power, data centre and mining operations, while also enabling the creation of entirely new products,” said analyst Frederic Bastien of Raymond James in a note to investors.
National Bank analyst Maxim Sytchev added that the addition of TRC makes WSP a “leading franchise” in the data centre and electrical grid space.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2026.
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