The advancements of new-age technologies, such as IoT, AI, Big Data, and more have led cities around the world to move ahead to become smarter. By leveraging these technologies, city planners could now better analyze and retort to local energy and environmental changes. The use of these technologies also made it possible to create a virtual replica of any object and that technology called Digital Twin. The technology is being utilized in manufacturing to create a replica of processing systems, enabling manufacturers or operators to see and work more efficiently.

In the concept of smart cities, the digital twin is evident. It has the potential to govern a city effectively. From urban planning to land-use optimization, the technology is able to simulate plans before implementing them, finding out issues before becoming a reality. Digital twin consists of a number of technologies to create full-scale digital versions of real-world objects and processes. It is changing the way how cities are designed, monitored and managed.

Benefits Digital Twin Delivers for Smart Cities

Today, cities globally are facing several challenges like congestion, pollution, safety, among others that are leading to city planners or designers to turn to innovative approaches. Alongside these problems, new threats like cybersecurity, data privacy, climate change and others are also emerging with the evolution and advancements of technology.

However, to combat these challenges most cities are now adopting a hostile, strategic, and more comprehensive approach. In this context, the digital twin is becoming an essential tool, offering operational cost savings, energy efficiencies, enhanced resilience, improved sustainability, and an optimistic impact on economic growth.

The technology can assist city IT leaders with everything from flood risk modeling to the optimization of renewable energy and traffic flows, occupancy tracking and evacuation simulations, as well as the generative design of city extensions. It delivers an advanced capability that connects the physical world with the virtual world to provide real-time intelligence on urban landscapes and infrastructure with the help of IoT sensors.

Cities Influenced by Digital twin

Many cities around the globe are now embracing this technology. Boston, New York, Singapore and Stockholm are some cities leveraging digital twin. Thanks to the technology, Amaravati, a city in Andhra Pradesh, India will reportedly be the first entirely new city to ever be born by Digital Twin.

Amaravati – A Greenfield Smart City of India

This smart city is built by Cityzenith’s Smart World Pro™, an advanced Digital Twin solution for buildings and cities. In December 2018, the government of Andhra Pradesh selected the company for the development of Amaravati, a new US$6.5 billion world-class greenfield smart city capital for the state. On completion, Amaravati will rank among the top three digitally advanced greenfield cities in the world. As a greenfield new city development, the city looks to integrate state-of-the-art Digital Twin technologies that revolutionize development, planning, operations, and citizen engagement at all levels across the new state capital.

Virtual Singapore

Singapore is the leading adopter of the digital twin, creating a Virtual Singapore model, a 3D representation of the country to make citizens’ life more convenient and safer. By leveraging this technology, the country has managed to empower its research and development, virtual experimentation, decision-making, and test-bedding efforts. Created by the National Research Foundation (NRF), Virtual Singapore is a dynamic three-dimensional city model and collaborative data platform, including the 3D maps of Singapore. The model to make Singapore smarter will be developed based on geometric and image data collected from several public agencies. The data then will integrate diverse data sources to describe the city with the necessary dynamic data ontology.

France’s Smart City with Digital Twin

France has also been experimenting with digital twin with the aim of strengthening architectural developments. One of the country’s cities, Rennes Metropole, has developed a 3D model of itself to foolproof urban development efforts that take residents’ needs and concerns into account. The 3D models are able to assist developers, architects, and municipal authorities in assessing the confines or complications that follow construction projects. By making use of digital twins, city leaders can gain insights on how certain decisions could influence a city’s landscape and infrastructure in the long run. It could also save cities from costly failures.

As digital twins are designed to serve the local population, some are already thinking about how to create a network of these cities. Reportedly, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has established a pilot project to develop a network of digitally twinned smart cities, which consists of Jakarta, Indonesia, and Cauayan City, Philippines, in addition to Singapore. The purpose behind the cities network is to leverage their shared resources and capabilities to collaborate on solutions to key urban challenges.