Digital twin or Metaverse. Which technology will Revolutionize our Future?

To answer this question, we first need to?understand the key differences between these 2 technologies.?

What is Metaverse??

Metaverse gained wide?popularity in 2020 even though the technology was realized much before. This became possible with the advent of COVID where people had to stay home and find a way to interact with others virtually rather than physically. Metaverse gives the users a sense of freedom which?was?not possible in the real world. This created a new market with uncapped opportunities for other industry players to drive revenue through this space. ?

To clearly understand the hype, we need to look at this from a different angle as well.??

The gaming industry has been gaining widespread popularity the past decade and is expected to hit a total market revenue goal of 300 billion by 2026. The introduction of smart phones also increased the adoption of casual gaming to a wider audience thereby increasing the number of users. Technological Innovation, Extensive Adoption and ease of accessibility being some of the key factors contributing to?this rise.?

Let me give an example, SONY, a well-known company in the laptop and mobile device market, majorly shifted its business goals post realizing success in the console market with?PlayStation. Currently there are?a staggering 112 million users on the PlayStation network. This user base is?very well primed for upselling other solutions like Music, films, and gaming production studio’s and others along with their successful consoles.?

?Metaverse incorporates some key aspects from the gaming industry and extends it to a much wider audience using the Internet. The users will be able to interact in a virtual environment in an immersive way, creating social experiences.?From virtual interactions with your friend to buying virtual land and attending live concerts in the metaverse, the possibilities became?endless.?

Then why is it losing traction in recent times? Everything seemed ideal. A new market had been realized. But why??

1. Not a common Shared Space: There are so many companies who are trying to get into space. Everyone has a unique perspective on what to do in metaverse. This created multiple duplicates of the virtual worlds without any connection between them. The user base is getting dissected and hence it is not a single place where everything happens.?
2. Privacy and Data security: The internet already collects so much data on the interactions that we do on the internet. Now imagine being in a 3D virtual world handling interactions with real world?users or businesses where the system collects data of all your moves. This becomes a huge violation of the privacy rights for the users.?
3. Digital good and the Hype: NFT’s and buying other digital assets was a hot topic in 2020-2021, But seeing the technology gaps and lapse in?regulations, it is on a decline.?
4. Scalability, Technology & Performance gaps: To scale a system with a high number of users in 3D environment will demand high performance and catering to this requirement is still something that needs more technological innovations and higher hardware requirements which might not be available with an average person.?
5. Use cases: Since most of the metaverse solutions are built on a notion of anything and everything, it becomes difficult to build boundaries on what you are trying to achieve from the platform and the usability becomes vague.?

What is Digital twin and why is it different??

Digital twins are a 3D virtual representation of a real-world condition or scene. Whatever changes you are making to the virtual environment will have an impact on the real-world condition. Majorly Digital Twin solution is used in the Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) space where there are multiple connected sensors. The user can even look at predicting the real-world condition based on the simulations run on the digital twin. For Industries, this effectively enables them to reduce the cost of operation by enabling predictive maintenance rather than prescriptive maintenance.?

Like Metaverse, the user can explore parts of the virtual environment in Digital twin, the key difference being Metaverse creates a collaborative space for all the users while?Digital twin functions for optimization and simulations of a real-world scene.?

The market size for Digital twin is expected to rise close to USD 160 Billion by 2030 with more adoption from industries like Manufacturing, Agriculture, Cities, Automotive, Aerospace and many others.?

?Why is Digital twin Gaining prominence over metaverse??

1. Use case Specific: Digital twins are enabled for industry or city specific use cases. Industries use Digital twins for plant maintenance, predictive analytics, optimization of manufacturing process while cities can use for city operation management, Infrastructure planning and others.?
2. Persona Specific: The Digital twin solution is user specific. The Industrial plant might have a plant operator who is monitoring and optimizing?the core process using digital twins. Cities can have city level authorities who are going to manage the city via the Digital twin.?
3. Real world Connection: The Digital twin solution will be integrated with real world assets and sensors which can be controlled and monitored using the solution. The impact of changes can also be visualized or simulated in real time.??
4. Optimizing Cost: Digital twin enables users to simulate conditions to understand the feasibility of a change without making the real-world change to understand the impact. This reduces the overall cost incurred compared to the traditional trial and error method.?
5. Single Platform: The Digital twins are built on a single platform where all the data can be collated and aggregated to provide operational efficiency, overall?insights, and real time visualizations. ?

Singapore city is a real-world example for?the success of?digital twin. Singapore City is on its course to running a nationwide Digital twin for managing its operations. The Digital twin will support Singapore authorities in the city planning, maintenance and optimizing energy usage at the city level. ?

Since Singapore is an island nation, they are prone to rising sea levels. Using the Digital twin solution, Singapore can respond to climate change impacts as well as empower and manage renewable sources of energy. This will enable them to measure, forecast and improve the nation's?energy usage.?

As a part of sustainability goals, more cities are now considering opting for a digital twin solution for optimizing energy usage and reaching net zero carbon emissions.?

The market is still in the discovery phase for?Digital twins and Metaverse. The key difference being the value add provided to the end users. Though?both these technologies come with?certain similarities and key differences, which one do you think provides a value add in the current scenario. Let me know!?