Features

Tiny town: A digital twin is a gamified, 3D, virtual representation of a company's asset.

Around 30 years ago, the video game publisher, Maxis, released SimCity. As the name implies, the goal was to create and run a virtual city. From building roads to power plants, adding different housing zones and even constructing an underground waterpipe system, every detail had to be meticulously thought out. For a city to thrive, it had to be sustainable, safe and economically sound. Gamers unknowingly became urban planners who had to get to grips with tax, infrastructure, gentrification and maintenance.

Everything had to work because when disaster struck, which in the world of SimCity could be earthquakes, fires or even UFOs, you needed a resilient backup plan, income and skilled virtual inhabitants. “That is, for me, a digital twin in plain English,” says Johan Potgieter, cluster industrial software lead at Schneider Electric. “To see the future and not make costly mistakes.”