Digital Twins in the Industrial Metaverse and Infrastructure Metaverse

/

Put digital twins inside the industrial metaverse and — voila! — you’ve got yourself a “metafactory.” At least that’s the way Fujitsu executive Esa Aho sees it.

But digital twins aren’t just forging a path in the industrial metaverse. They’re also gaining ground in the infrastructure metaverse.

Quoting Aho’s take on the subject, RCR Wireless News notes that the convergence of digital twins and the industrial metaverse “will enable people to operate machinery in new and innovative ways.”

In a Fujitsu blog post, Aho, the company’s head of portfolio in Finland, outlines the emerging relationship between digital twins and the industrial metaverse.

“Digital twins, already established in the sector, are digital models of an object or system, but where a human isn’t a dynamic part of the model,” Aho writes. “On the other hand, the metaverse allows humans to interact dynamically in environments made up of digital images — furniture, cars, pictures of products, for example — but without the ability to change the state of those objects.”

Now, when you tuck a digital twin into the metaverse, the resulting metafactory enables people to “work with the machines and systems that comprise the factory,” he says.

“A metafactory would make digital twins more alive because people are a massively important aspect of any system. Put another way — it’s not a twin if there’s no human in it,” Aho observes.

Outside the industrial metaverse, digital twins hold great potential for the infrastructure metaverse.

In an article for CIO magazine, Nicholas Evans, chief innovation officer at design and professional services firm WGI, asserts that digital twins “are primed to revolutionize the infrastructure industry.”

“Everything from buildings, bridges, and parking structures, to water and sewer lines, roadways and entire cities are ripe for reaping the value of digital twins,” Evans writes.

Evans notes that the infrastructure industry has been slow to embrace the digital transformation, but he believes the shift to digital twins in the infrastructure metaverse will enter the “early mainstream” in the next two years.

Writing for Forbes.com, Mark Pittman, founder and CEO of Blyncsy, a provider of AI- and machine learning-powered intelligence for the transportation sector, says his industry is on the verge of creating digital twins of roadways.

“By collecting real-time data, we can create virtual copies of physical roadway systems. The benefits of this are countless,” Pittman writes. “Imagine Google Maps Street View updating in real-time as objects move and change on it continuously. The power to see change as it happens, and have a ground-level perspective from anywhere in the world, will drive efficiency and scale never before seen in our economy.”

Digital roadways, he says, will drive the transportation industry toward a safer, greener, more cost-effective future. The same could be said for the implications of digital twins in the industrial metaverse.

“Digital twins — once a backroom and undervalued resource — are increasingly used to simulate products, equipment, factories, buildings, and cities,” according to New York University’s School of Professional Studies. “These things, all considered a part of the physical world, now have accurate virtual counterparts. With the [metaverse] unlocking a new economy, digital twins are about to have their long-awaited moment. Innovation in this space is just starting.”

Buckle up — it’s going to be a fascinating ride.