Cross-sector collaboration and digital twins

Welcome to our first editorial of 2023!

An update from Ryan Goodman, DT Hub Team Lead

What are some of the highlights from the last couple of months?

We are always looking for opportunities to increase collaboration and cooperation between industries, so a highlight has been launching our Cross Catapult Group. The group is open to each of the nine Catapults, whether it’s high value manufacturing or offshore renewable energy. The aim is to have a representative as part of the group joining a meeting every month to share knowledge and exchange digital twin related case studies. Many of the Catapults are in industries where we see applications of digital twins evolving or emerging and we want the DT Hub to be the central vehicle through which all the relevant news from the Catapults, relating to digital twins, is disseminated.

We’re hoping that it will build greater lines of communication across the Catapults so, for example, enabling overlapping industries or adjacent industries that would benefit from informing data standards or making data more interoperable.

Another highlight was hosting the first in our series of Fireside Chats; we had a virtual 30-minute panel discussion looking into the financial challenges and opportunities that accompany digital twins’ creation and implementation. There were 91 attendees at the event, so a great response and we plan to continue running them at least every quarter. Their focus will differ from Gemini Calls and rather than presenting case studies, the aim is that they spark debate amongst our community and help drive more thought leadership related content around the opportunities to progress connected digital twins.

One other item to flag up is that we are in the process of developing e-learning materials with the Open Data Institute to build digital skills and improve literacy and capability around digital twin thinking. They will not only focus on the technical side but also build up some of the softer skills such as communication related to building a digital twin business case. We really need to progress these skills so we can clearly communicate the value and impact to Businesses and Society from implementing this technology.

Any dates for the diary?

Tuesday 7 March – Register for our Climate Resilience Demonstrator (CReDo) webinar, we’ll be looking at cross-sector data sharing and bringing the data together in a way that is scaleable and extensible. 

Thursday 9 March – FutureBuild 2023, where we’re hosting a panel session with several DT Hub community members, to drive discussions around the future adoption of digital twins.

Thursday 22 June – Save the date for our Digital Twin Showcase event at Connected Places Catapult, London. If you’re not already a member of the DT Hub, sign up here – more information coming very soon!

What exciting digital twin story have you come across recently?

I’ve been reading a really interesting report from McKinsey about how the enterprise metaverse will be powered by dozens of interconnected Digital Twins that replicate everything from physical assets to people to core business processes and often interact with the physical environment without human intervention. There are some great case studies in the report that bring to life what this could look like and the potential efficiencies that would come from this approach.

The report also mentions how quickly the digital twin sector is growing. The research findings have indicated that 70 per cent of C-suite technology executives at large enterprises are exploring and investing in digital twins. This interest, combined with an improvement in supportive technologies, is driving market estimates for digital-twin investments. These investments are set to be more than $48 billion by 2026, which is great news for the digital twin ecosystem.