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 businesses. Several governments around the world are also showing support for the development of advanced production technologies in the form of favorable initiatives and policies.
As a digital counterpart of a real-time or physical machine or process, it is a useful tool for conducting virtual simulations of a physical product or process to understand and estimate its future performance. 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.
Use of advanced technologies will drive digital twin industry in Europe
Europe’s digital twin market is anticipated to surpass $9.5 billion by 2026. The region is widely known for the creation and use of advanced technologies across several different industries. Digital twin technology adoption 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.
International consulting and engineering company, 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 Europe automotive sector will use digital twin technology to analyze the performance of vehicles and identify areas of improvement in the overall design and efficiency of the vehicles. Other advanced technologies like AI (artificial intelligence), IoT (internet of things) and IIoT (industrial internet of things) are being increasingly adopted to continuously enhance the operator experience.
Germany is well-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 sectors like healthcare in the country. This has prompted the development of digital twin solutions among many domestic companies.
Siemens AG, for example, 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 digital twin market is expected to become worth nearly $1.5B USD in the coming years. There has been a growing need to improve 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 proactively detecting faults and making improvements within the design and overall product performance has stimulated the need for digital twin technology.
By applying digital twin technology, companies are speeding up their design processes, saving time, money, and ultimately speeding up their time to market with new product launches.
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.
Rise in Industry 4.0 practices will foster APAC digital twin market:
The Asia Pacific (APAC) 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 the 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.
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 used in the manufacturing process.
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. As more prominent enterprise companies shift toward advanced technologies to optimize system design and process performance, the global digital twin market will continue its rapid trajectory as an essential engineering tool.
