Digital Twins, Automation Crucial to Realise Industrial Metaverse, Siemens Says

German manufacturing giant Siemens has begun exploring numerous Web3 technologies to improve processes for its operations and clients in recent years.

The Munich and Berlin-based firm has opened a new accelerator programme aimed at building an ecosystem with partnered companies, with it most recent joint venture involving Maeve Aerospace. The latter firm has leveraged Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio of digital twin and automation technologies to develop its next-generation, zero emissions, and all-electric aircraft.

At the Enterprise Metaverse Summit in London on 28 June, several key Siemens executives addressed in a keynote speech the future of digital twin technologies.

With its partners and collaborators, the company has leveraged tools capable of building ecosystems for the industrial metaverse and enterprise-grade spatial computing.

XR Today interviewed Brian Holliday, Managing Director of Digital Industries, Siemens, to discuss the role of digital twins in the industrial metaverse.

Digital Twins Improving the Real World

When asked about his thoughts on the most important observations in the enterprise XR industry, Holliday stated that there was “no question” that digital twinning made a “tremendous difference” by improving processes in the virtual world before building them in the real world.

He explained how digital twins could reduce environmental footprints and create better products to offer better services.

Holliday added that his colleague, Gerhard Kress, Vice-President, Xcelerator Portfolio and Digital Business, Siemens, highlighted that the Metaverse would become the next generation of computing, allowing businesses to fully benefit from digital twin technologies.

According to Holliday, Siemens was preparing to “embrace the opportunity that the industrial metaverse presents.”

He added that the company also aimed to improve and streamline processes and operations across factories to optimise digitalisation initiatives at deployment.

To select the right applications to build enterprise competencies, Siemens had to build “digital products first,” reducing prototyping efforts and, subsequently, the environmental footprints of products, Holliday explained.

Siemens had been increasingly becoming “digital first” with design and production line operations. This allowed the German enterprise to boost productivity for customer processes.

Digital twinning also offered Siemens capabilities to “make better use of data generated from operational technology,” Holliday added.

He explained further,

“Imagine one in three machines that feature a Siemens control system — that is the size of our footprint. It also represents the sense of our responsiblity. We have to think about how we can improve the use of industrial data globally to reduce the environmental footprint of manufacturing, but also productivity levels as well”

Collaboration is Key to the Industrial Metaverse

When asked about why it was important to collaborate with other tech companies to build industrial metaverse tools, Holliday explained that it would help to build fully operation ecosystems using the knowledge of other firms.

He explained that the industry was in an environment where “no one company has the answers to the level of challenges that digitization faces, nor the opportunities.”

Citing Siemens Xcelerator partnership with computing giant NVIDIA, he told XR Today that it helped to accelerate the benefits from industrial digitalisation processes using smart infrastructure and technology applications.

He lauded the partnership, stating that initial use cases began with BMW production lines.

Holliday said:

“It was really exciting to see you know, high definition graphics and a really immersive experience, put together with a physics based model. Whilst not at the quality of gaming graphics, the digital twins created lifelike, physics-based models from production lines”

Continuing, Holiday told XR Today that physical spaces, processes, and assets were “genuinely exciting.” Digital twins and the industrial metaverse took “that to the next level,” he added.

Holiday explained that there was “no question” that involved incorporating the “best in class” graphical rendering, automation, and real-world operational technology from Siemens.

Companies also required Siemens’ domain expertise to tackle “real-world challenges” while designing, creating, and operating objects in the industrial world.

He noted,

“This is an ecosystem play, and our Xcelerator programme is about [creating] portfolios and open standards that multiple parties can leverage. For us, it’s also about creating digital platforms, where collaboration can take place to avoid a future scenario where problems are solve 1,000 times over. We will make more profit and progress if APIs, apps, and digital assets are shared on a global basis. For the industry to use applications across water, wastewater, food, and beverage plant in industrial infrastructure, collaboration is key to making more progress in the future using these technologies”

Top Summit Takeaways

When asked about the biggest takeaway from the Enterprise Metaverse Summit, Holliday stated that it was great to “see the number of players already very active in the space.”

He told XR Today: “We’ve heard from the Economist in opening comment that this could be a trillion dollar opportunity over the next few decades.”

The executive continued that global aspirations for the Metaverse had surpassed early McKinsey insights. Currently, applications were “very broad” as multiple verticals explored ways to apply the technologies.

He concluded: “My takeaway is that this is already gathering pace and momentum. I’m really interested to see the rest of the event to see what use cases come up, which are key to propagate the industrial metaverse beyond its early stages.”

For more information, kindly visit Siemens at its website.