Digital transition and emerging territories: Challenges and opportunities in Morocco’s construction sector

By 2030, Morocco aims to reposition as a leading digital hub in the Africa. By recognizing the importance of digitalization, the country has initiated numerous policies to integrate this process across important key sectors. However, these strategies remain fragmented and insufficiently adapted to one of the most substantial fields contributing to the economy: the construction sector. This study explores how the digital transition is reshaping construction practices in emerging territories and the strategies needed to integrate digital tools effectively. Despite the large potential that technologies such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), City Information Modeling (CIM), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) hold for optimizing project management and ensuring sustainability, (BIM), City Information Modeling (CIM), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) holds in optimizing project management and ensuring a sustainable development, their adoption remains inconsistent and somewhat limited. This research, based on an empirical analysis, acknowledges the effectiveness of digital tools in shaping major-scale projects. By evaluating BIM’s impact on decision-making and cost savings, the findings highlight digital technologies’ potential to reshape Morocco’s urban landscape and propose new strategies to digitize the construction industry.