The move expands Accenture's capital project capabilities, moving it into an "adjacent business with an estimated $88 billion of addressable market in North America," according to the New York-based firm. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but Accenture said all 920 of Anser Advisory's employees, mostly at its headquarters in Santa Ana, Calif., will have the option of becoming Accenture employees.

"It really comes down to the fact our clients have really ambitious infrastructure commitments, and we want to be better positioned to help them deliver on those commitments," said Andrew Webster, managing director and Industry X Capital project global lead in Accenture's Houston office. "Investments in infrastructure and energy transition projects are projected to drive non-residential spending over $1.033 billion in the U.S. in 2023. That's driven by the stimulus, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment JOBS Act, and the Chips and Science Act. It's really a trend towards increasing infrastructure spend in the near term for energy transition, and also bringing back manufacturing jobs to the U.S."

Anser Advisory itself recently acquired digital twin technology provider Gafcon Digital and said doing so would help it better manage clients' large projects. The resources of global consultant Accenture will likely help Anser Advisory reach new markets in program management, the company's CEO Bryan Carruthers said in a statement. 

"Clients engage Anser Advisory as a trusted advisor to minimize risk and maximize outcomes when they invest in critical infrastructure," said Carruthers. "By joining Accenture, we will be able to provide new value and scale to our clients to support their missions and opportunities for our people to grow their careers at one of the world’s most prestigious companies."

Recent acquisitions Accenture has made in asset-intensive industries include Eclipse Automation, a provider of customized manufacturing automation and robotics solutions; umlaut, a global engineering services provider; and Advoco, an asset management services provider.

"This is a strategic move on our part," Webster said, "but we have been in the digital side of projects, for quite some time, across industries. What we're really looking to achieve here is a increased ability to help our clients with what Anser can do but also combine that together with what we can do from a digital standpoint, and really help accelerate our clients rotation to adopting digital in this part of their business, which, as you know, this isn't one of the industries where there is the most digital adoption."