The global digital twin market is expected to witness rapid development in the coming years, thanks to its increased adoption by enterprises to effectively manage various critical activities of their business. As the term suggests, it is considered as a digital counterpart of a real-time or physical machine or process. It can be a computer program that is quite useful for conducting virtual simulations of a physical product or process to understand and estimate its future performance.

Several governments across the world are showing their support towards the development of advanced production technologies in the form of favorable initiatives and policies. Digital twins are becoming quite popular among companies as they help them analyze the future performance of an object or process, thereby saving a lot of money, time and effort for the organization. For instance, ORE Catapult and James Fisher Asset Information Services Ltd., in April 2020, announced a strategic alliance to use digital twin technology for effective offshore wind management.

The top trends that will bolster the global digital twin industry are given below:

Use of advanced technologies will drive digital twin industry in Europe:

Europe’s digital twin market size is anticipated to go past the valuation of $9.5 billion during the forecast period of 2020-2026. The region is widely known for the creation and use of advanced technologies across different industries. Digital twin technology has picked up pace in recent years in several countries across Europe because of the rising need for virtual technologies and high-end analytical tools to help build future processes across industries.

GHENOVA Ingenieria launched its own digital twin center named GHENOVA 360 in May 2020. The launch will help in the creation and deployment of naval systems and has enabled the company to deliver solutions to military ship manufacturers.

The automotive industry will use digital twins to improve product performance:

Digital twin technology will find increased application in the European automotive industry. The automotive sector will use this technology to analyze the performance of vehicles and make desired changes. It will help companies make improvements in the overall design and efficiency of the vehicles as well. Advanced technologies like AI, IoT and IIoT are being increasingly adopted to continuously enhance the driving experience for the owners. The use of digital twin technology even helps predict potential risks in vehicles and provides solutions for the same.

Germany’s role in the European digital twin industry :

Germany is known for its use of advanced technologies and will play a key role in the development of the digital twin market in Europe. Digitization is taking place on a large scale across different sectors like healthcare in the country. This has prompted the development of digital twin solutions among many domestic companies.

Siemens AG announced a partnership with Atos SE to create digital twin services for the pharmaceutical sector. Various technologies like AI, IoT and IIoT are being used in digital twin processes to analyze the overall efficiency in the production of pharmaceutical products and make improvements accordingly. The use of this advanced technology has helped increase the overall reliability and quality of processes.

Improved design and performance demand in North America:

North America’s digital twin market is expected to become worth nearly $1.5 billion in valuation over the coming years. There has been a growing need for improving the design and performance of the products and services among the regional producers. In fact, the product design and development application held a share of nearly 50% in the regional digital twin market in 2019. The demand for detecting faults beforehand and making significant improvements in the design and performance of the product has stimulated the need for using digital twins.

This technology helps in saving a lot of money, time and efforts of companies by speeding up the designing procedures which ultimately helps in launching new products at a faster rate.

North America aerospace and defense sector uses digital twin:

The aerospace and defense sector in North America will increasingly adopt digital twin technology through 2026. One of the main reasons for this substantial rise in demand is the need to reduce casualties and increase the efficiency of military weapons. Digital twin technology helps in creating virtual models of weapons and other components to understand their current status.

The data received from real-time machinery helps the advanced technology in detecting potential faults in these weapons and even helps in predicting the exact time when maintenance will be required. The aircraft industry is using digital twins of real airplanes and feeding them with real-time data to improve the reliability of their functioning and reduce the overall cost of maintenance. They effectively help in enhancing the performance of the airplanes as well.

The rise in industry 4.0 practices will foster APAC digital twin market:

The Asian Pacific digital twin market will become worth more than $11 billion in valuation by 2026. Industry 4.0 is seeing rapid adoption across different sectors and is helping them become digital in many ways. The use of digital twin technology will enable industries in bridging the gap between the virtual and physical world and will even play an important role in enhancing overall efficiency and productivity. Toyota had, for example, had displayed its concept of futuristic warehouses with digital twin in April 2019, having intelligent pre-trained forklifts and lean logistics.

Higher focus on process support and services in Asia Pacific:

Digital twin technology solutions will find increased application in process support and services segment in Asia Pacific region. The Asia Pacific digital twin market share from the application is anticipated to grow at 35% CAGR throughout the mentioned forecast timeline. Processes of several industries can be improved with the help of digital twins; they can even be used to reduce the overall maintenance costs by predicting faults beforehand. These efforts will improve customer experience, reduce overhead costs incurred in repair and maintenance and optimize manpower use in the manufacturing processes.

Some of the prominent companies involved in providing digital twin technology solutions across the world are Oracle Corporation, IBM Corporation, Siemens AG, PTC Inc., SAS Institute Inc., Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric and some others.