Rapid urbanization is going to pose major challenges for our city planners in the coming years. According to a World Bank estimate, by 2050, seven out of ten people in the world will live in cities. These people will require affordable housing, well-connected transport systems, healthcare services, walkable streets, and other infrastructure. Due to a massive surge in economic activities, it is expected that over 80% of global GDP will be generated in cities.
Today, population growth and large-scale urbanization is propelling governments, city administrators, and other stakeholders to reinvent plans and processes, with a clear focus on resilience, sustainability, and ease of living. This is where the concept of a Digital City comes in. Simply put, a Digital City is a city that is connected and is powered by technology platforms for information and communications. These platforms also make it possible to process large amounts of data from different sources, offering unique services to citizens and advantages to urban planners.
Since connected infrastructure is a must for a Digital City, the Digital Twin technology is at the forefront of creating a seamless connected infrastructure system, with the integration of 4IR solutions like Internet of Things (IoT).
A Digital Twin, with its capabilities to facilitate a shared “system of systems” platform, or a “unified operations center”, is a transformative solution to provide digital representation of assets with geospatial information. This crucial feature of these digital replicas, along with other transformative solutions, enables efficient and sustainable ways of asset management through design and engineering data, operational data, maintenance data, performance simulation, and scenario modelling data.
