The 'Industrial Metaverse', 10 statements to 'mull over' ...
Kevin O'Donovan
Technology Evangelist, "Bridging the gap" between tech hype & reality | Technology Advocate | Advisor | Scout | Speaker | Moderator ... #EnergyTransition | #DigitalTwin | #IndustrialMetaverse | #IndustrialAI
It was back over a year ago I started talking to folks about how the Metaverse could play out across Industry, especially in the Energy Industry. Not a week goes by today where we do not see multiple 'Industrial Metaverse' related announcements. It was a hot topic during NVIDIA's recent #GTC22 and last week off at #VRARA's immerse Summit Europe, it was great to hear from the likes of Unity, Magic Leap, Lenovo & many others on how they see this playing out across various Industries.
Now given there is SO much going on, one could easily write a book. But instead of trying to write a book, instead here's my list of 10 Industrial Metaverse ‘statements’ for ye all to mull over;
1.??????The Industrial Metaverse is a lot closer than many people think. While Gartner has ‘Metaverse’ at a 10+ year horizon on their latest 2022 New Tech Hype Cycle, NVIDIA have been surprised by the amount of Industrial Companies who are already well down the path.
2.?????The Industrial Metaverse is being enabled by the convergence of many technologies,?the key enabler being Digital Twin Technology.
3.??????While the ‘Industrial Metaverse’ is on full hype these days; remember this is simply the next stage of Digitalization.
4.??????The real value of all this is in the ‘simulation’, not the animation.
5.??????And ‘simulation’ standards will be key for interoperability and consistency. Hence, the focus on Universal Scene Description (USD). Yet USD will never be able to allow for every Industrial use case or requirement. It would collapse under its own weight.
6.??????Given the goal is to have real time immersive 3D simulations of entire factories, we will need to re-think the IT infrastructure?we need to make this all work. While real-time ray tracking in the cloud is here, the speed of light is still only so fast. We will need a lot more edge compute to meet the?required computational/graphic demands.
7.??????While immersive VR / AR experiences will become common and thus the ability to ‘teleport’ around in a factory will be cool, you do not have to be off in a photorealistic immersive virtual reality world to get business value today. And remember 'immersive' means different things to different people...
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8.???Industry typically sells ‘physical’ things – a robot, a machine, a wind turbine etc. Well, why not sell the digital twin as a product in it’s own right without the physical asset??Others will use them in their simulations. This will open up all sorts of new business opportunities around ‘Virtual Industrial Assets’.
9.??????Industrial Metaverse solutions will look very different to Consumer Metaverse solutions, both in the use cases and the underlying infrastructure. Plus the complexity of an Industrial ‘virtual world’ is way more than in a Consumer one today.
10.??Like any Digitalization project,?Industrial Metaverse technologies will need to both integrate into existing workflows AND will force us to re-look at all our existing workflows. This will lead to a lot of change, and sometimes us ‘humans’ dislike change.
Anyway, in my opinion, the Industrial Metaverse is happening, and it may be a lot closer than we all think. However, we do need to do a way better job in ‘bridging the gap’ between the ‘art of the possible’ and what is feasible to do today, so every company understands they too can participate and no one gets left behind. But that’s a topic for another day…__________________________________________________________________________
Now should you wish to follow up with me on any of my points above or to simply sync up some day to explore if we may have some potential collaboration opportunities together, well, I'm always open to new opportunities.
I use?Calendly to organize my schedule, so you can check if any available slots work for you. If not, simply contact me here on LinkedIn or drop an email to?[email protected]?and we can take it from there.
Kev.
Senior Consultant Thought Leadership
2 年Thanks for your perspective. That is indeed quite enough for a whole book (at least). I love your casual remark about the boundaries for physcics - that the "speed of light is still only so fast". This is going to be one of my favorite questions: how humanity will trick the Metaverse into operating in "quasi" at faster than light speed.
Principal Consultant |Gov Engagement|Empowering Emerging Digital Innovation|Transformation|Edtec|Talents|Tech Infra|Data privacy/AI & Cyber Security.
2 年Hei Kevin great update based on engagement with industries its a long call , guess industries are not ready in adopting except the MNC 's , cost is the main point but I beleif with new technologies eveloving in future it will be much economical and easy adoption in industries, just my 2cents.
Founder, Managing Director @Innoveam Tech Enthusiast | 3D Data | Engineering Simulation | AI-Driven 3D Digital Twins | CollaborativeXR | Metaverse
2 年Hi Kevin, it's been a while since I saw you in Abu Dhabi last year. Really great to see all the information you are sharing. I have been involved in developing 3D simulations for industrial applications for close to 8 years now, and the main issue is the 'virtual industrial assets' you talk about are site specific; clients will tend to require 'As built' 3D virtual assets for their digital twins. If we can get the price point for full laser scans and subsequently 3D CAD model development of their assets low enough or done in an automated way, then this is the business opportunity that will accelerate the industrial metaverse adoption. Another real problem is industrial assets tend to be massive and very detailed. To enable adoption, the datasets need to be rendered efficiently and cost effectively to be used in the 'metaverse'. Cloud based realtime remote rendering services are still very expensive at the moment, and requires a stable 5G connectivity to be used well. We are using edge computing for on-premise rendering and connected to the cloud for collaboration, data consumption and visualisation. There are still limitations to this at the moment, but new developments are coming up thick and fast.
Designing the Green Transition | CEO, KIRT x THOMSEN
2 年Thanks Kevin. Good take-aways! Agree with the overall. Regarding point "4.?The real value of all this is in the ‘simulation’, not the animation." we have to remember there is the communication of innovation to various stakeholders and for that purpose conceptual 'animation' is still a valuable tool to pursue energy innovation. On top of this, the metaverse might be very effective in the development stage of a project, and when it comes to more incremental innovation but we must keep thinking out of the box and creating visionary ideas and innovation. The metaverse is a great innovation booster and helping tool, as long as the human mindset is setting the right innovation direction and creating innovative ideas.
Innovation Ecosystem Strategist & Designer | | Business Transformation Advisor- Partnership Perspective | | Energy & Industry Transition Guide | | Innovation & Ecosystem Leadership Coach & Mentor
2 年I think this is the critical issue today "?Industrial Metaverse solutions will look very different to Consumer Metaverse solutions". Identifying those differences in value and need becomes critical