In simple terminology, Digital Twin is nothing more than an avatar in the virtual world. It is being believed that in the future or many for all we know as we write this, it is happening, that brands or companies have begun to create their digital avatars and are able to keep a track of the smallest of the development including management of supply chain, among others. Digital Twin utilises the concept of machine learning and simulation for taking decisions.
The digital twin market was valued at $14 billion in the previous year, as per market research firm Modor Intelligence. The report further stated that the market is expected to reach $91.92 billion, registering a CAGR of 36.94% by 2028. Digital twin solutions are anticipated to transform the manufacturing processes and offer different and innovative approaches to reduce costs, optimize maintenance, monitor assets, reduce downtime, and create new connected products. In conversation with FE Blockchain’s Poulami Saha, Sivakumar Muthusamy, Digital Technologies practice head, InfoVision, talks about the role Digital Twin is expected to play. (Edited Excerpts)
How has Digital Twin helped to get a new perspective towards 3D design thereby enabling digital avatars?
With the evolution of technology we started looking at a digital tool-based platform, where real-time data comes in and a simulated platform becomes a real platform with which you can experience multiple use case scenarios. It gives you the real-time view of objects and then take those objects and give them metadata, information and so on.
Talking about the real-time data objects, it cannot be always 2D as 3D design makes it more accurate. Eventually, a lot of 3D design products were built to integrate and capture the metadata information of the real real-world products and then virtually move them into different places or measure them and take a decision based on the algorithm.
Can the involvement of Digital Twin in corporate sectors bring innovations in the existing working structures?
If you consider corporate sectors, it has multiple verticals. This can include banking, finance, healthcare, telecom, retail, consumer logic, logistics, among others. Every sector can have a Digital Twin. Among these, supply chain is considered as one of the sector that can be highly benefitted with the help of Digital twin. For example, its quite challenging to extract accurate information about supply demand and supply matching. This issue can be solved by the use of Digital Twin, which is an expert in providing accurate information.
What makes the concept of Digital Twin different than simulation?
Simulation is a model where specific data points are predefined, but Digital Twin is not like that. In Digital Twin real-time objects are involved which actually emits data to the system. Then these data are picked up to display in the dashboard or pass on to the algorithms which gives a predictive model or decision points. So, there’s a major difference between simulation and Digital Twin.
The collaboration of metaverse and Digital Twin can bring revolutionary change in the real-time world. How much do you agree with this statement and why?
Metaverse is expected to rise to reach about $96 billion by the end of 2029, which means metaverse will actually outperform the Digital Twin. So, this will become a subset of Metaverse which includes synthetic image generation, data generation and other simulation-based activities. So, in my view, metaverse will rule the marketplace in the next four to five years.