With the 2016 Rio Olympics and one of the most watched U.S. elections in modern history headlining the news cycle this past summer it might have been easy to miss a very important story in the world of infrastructure. The operations of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) came into full effect creating the first major multilateral development bank in a generation. Its mandate is to provide loans for infrastructure projects such as energy, communications and transportation.

Despite attempts by the U.S. government to talk allies out of joining the Chinese-led bank — amid concerns of lack of governance, transparency, human rights and the environment — countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Israel and Canada have joined or are in the process of completing their applications processes. So far, the United States and Japan are the only G-7 countries not planning to join the AIIB.

According to its website, the AIIB will focus on, “the de