TECHNICAL FEATURES
25% of the world’s public-sector
WWTPS to use AI in 2025 by 2035, this figure is expected to reach 60%
As the global population grows and urbanisation accelerates, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are facing increasing pressure to deliver high-quality effluent. The world's population is set to reach 8.2 billion this year, making WWTPs a strategic focus for sustainability.
Furthermore, directives such as EU Directive 2024/3019, the US Clean Water Act (CWA) and Japan's Water Pollution Control Act, to name just a few, set stricter standards for wastewater reuse, with higher quality requirements. According to Xylem Vue, this poses a challenge for WWTPs as these standards require advanced technologies such as membrane filtration and disinfection, continuous monitoring with IoT sensors, and the promotion of energy neutrality through anaerobic digestion.
WWTPs INTEGRATE AI
Against this background, Pablo Montalvillo, a Water Consultant at Xylem Vue, stated that the integration of AI technologies and digital twins in wastewater treatment plants “represents a transformative approach to improving operational efficiency, reducing costs, improving decision-making, and achieving sustainability goals.” According to the expert, “The challenges include ensuring data quality, implementing processes, and integrating these new digital tools into the organisational culture.”
As highlighted in the recently published 26
Xylem Vue report, Water Technology Trends 2025: revolutionising water management, the use of AI in treatment plants currently stands at around 10% to 15%, mainly in larger utilities. In 2025, this figure is expected to rise to 25-30% as AI solutions become more cost-effective and their ROI delivers clearer returns.
This trend will continue to gain momentum in the coming years. Experts predict that by 2035 AI will be mainstream in 40-60% of large and medium-sized WWTPs in developed countries, driving compliance, safety, and efficiency across the sector.
AI ADVANCES IN WASTEWATER TREATMENT
For Xylem Vue, this paradigm shift positions AI and digital twins as key components in advancing water treatment technologies. As such, Xylem Vue has identified six key trends for these technologies in water treatment in its report “Water Technology Trends 2025: revolutionising water management”.
Operational optimisation. AI models fine- tune processes such as chemical dosing and energy use, driving down operational expenses and ensuring regulatory compliance. They also meet quality criteria, reduce carbon footprints, and save costs.
Data-driven process optimisation. By leveraging big data analytics and machine
| July 2025 |
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learning, Treatment System Optimisation (TSO) solutions streamline wastewater treatment by refining processes such as aeration, chemical dosing, and sludge retention in real time. TSO employs decision intelligence to provide actionable insights, ensuring compliance with effluent standards while minimising energy and chemical use.
• Predictive maintenance. AI detects patterns in data to anticipate equipment failures, thus minimising downtime and extending asset life.
• Enhanced decision-making. Real-time insights help faster, better-informed decisions.
• Sustainability. AI-driven solutions reduce environmental impacts and encourage efficient resource usage.
• Water reuse. The growing scarcity of water drives the implementation of technologies that enable the safe reuse of treated water in applications such as agricultural irrigation and urban uses, contributing to sustainability and the conservation of water resources.
• Finally, discharge control and hydraulic efficiency. The use of IoT sensors and big data enables real-time monitoring of the sanitation network and WWTPs, detecting discharges and optimising hydraulic performance.
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