Digital twins have had appeal in certain industries – manufacturing, oil and gas, utilities, mining – “basically physical, high-capital, asset-intensive verticals,” said Jonathan Lang, research director, worldwide IT/OT convergence strategies, at research firm IDC, in an interview with Network World.
In these settings, the rationale for digital twins has been clear, thanks to potential benefits that include better visibility into the health of assets, improved reliability, cost savings, and the ability to ensure stable operations, Lang says. “IT environments such as infrastructure, network equipment, connected devices, etc., have the same value drivers,” he says.
What kinds of digital twins are there?
IBM offers a categorization scheme based not on specific industries but on the complexity of what’s being twinned. This provides a useful way to think about the needs in specific use cases and gives a look at the broad spectrum of what digital twins can do:
