Digital twins are replicas of physical devices across their entire life cycles, commonly used by data scientists and IT professionals to run simulations on. This enables technical teams to actually see how the entire machine works from start to end, allowing them to suggest changes and modifications as well as predict how the machine can perform in the future. Thanks to digital twins, businesses can get a clear view into the performance of their machines. Digital twins identify faults, can troubleshoot and eventually improve customer satisfaction levels. By gaining granular insights into the workings of a machine, this data is now vital component in helping companies save time and money. 

Originally, NASA was among the first to explore this concept. Was there a way scientists could see and understand how the various moving parts of complex machines up in space were functioning? These mirrored systems proved critical when the Apollo 13 disaster struck, allowing the scientists back at NASA to quickly assess how they could salvage the mission. Since then, more industries are heavily investing in digital twins to optimise their machines and shopfloor operations. Industrialisation is undergoing a sea change now thanks to digitisation, and large conglomerates are looking for ways to drive efficiency of machines, reduce downtime and associated costs. Digital twins are a highly cost effective measure to help manage machine health and integrity, and optimise operations. AI capabilities in digital twins enhance the prescriptive strengths of this technology, and help tackle old and new challenges more effectively. 

Efficient data mining combined with domain expertise allows AI to power digital twins from anywhere. If an engineer in Bangalore has a digital twin of a machine in Haryana, he can easily narrow down where the machine needs be tweaked and improvised. A continuous churn of data makes the AI "smarter" over time and provides more analytical insights and accurate suggestions to improve machine performance. Moreover, digital twins are especially useful in hazardous industries as they can limit the need to deploy manpower around dangerous machines. With COVID19 compelling even conventional sectors like manufacturing to embrace remote work, digital twin deployment has been particularly useful in the past year. 

With the benefits of circular economy gaining ground everyday, companies are striving to optimise their business processes across the board by making them environmentally beneficial. The digital twin is a powerful enabler of better sustainability transparency, reporting, measurement and optimization. From an energy management standpoint, virtual replicas of different plant processes put a spotlight on processes and equipment that use the most energy and contribute to unnecessary energy waste.