Twenty years ago, the sci-fi film Minority Report showed us a world where crime was stopped before it happened. Could that happen in reality?
We’re closer than you might think. Advancements in artificial intelligence, IoT sensors, and other technologies are empowering organizations across the world to invest in digital twins, which can help them predict and adapt to any type of disruption. Digital twin technology enables the creation of a real-time, virtual counterpart of something in the physical world, using detailed data analytics to recreate the entirety of a person, place, or thing digitally.
Where once they were mainly used in manufacturing, now a digital twin could be anything from an important part in a machine to a human organ, and beyond. Existing digital twin use-cases range from a component in a power plant that can be tested in the virtual world to see if it will hold up to stress in the real world to a virtual office to measure possible COVID spread.
However, innovation in digital twin technology has primarily taken place in the private sector. It’s far past time for the U.S. government to pay attention.
In early October, the Biden Administration’s Office of Science Technology and Policy (OSTP), published an AI Bill of Rights. This is a step in the right direction of acknowledging the tremendous potential, and challenges, technology offers. But the U.S. government must not only state positions on technology – it must lead the way in using technology to prepare for next disruption or disaster.
Taking inspiration from Minority Report, the Biden Administration should create a “Digital Twin Division” made up of experts and technologies that constantly model scenarios, disruptions, and possible responses. The Division could sit within the Department of Homeland Security to support FEMA as well as broad security mandates within the U.S.
There is a clear need for a better way to respond and adapt to the numerous challenges in front of us. World governments have not been good at predicting crises in advance or responding effectively. To a large degree, they fall short not in capabilities, but in policy, budgeting, and action. It’s generally unpopular to spend money on something that might happen, when there are other programs that are more pressing or have stronger public support.
One only has to look at the early days of COVID to see the shortfalls in how even the most powerful and well-equipped countries responded – despite having access to many studies and reports demonstrating the potential of a pandemic to rapidly spread and disrupt business and society.
Digital twins could change the way government plan their response to similar emergency and disaster scenarios. Seeing is believing, and digital twin technology provides the unique capability to see what could – what will – go wrong in stark terms. It’s one thing to predict deaths from a natural disaster. It’s another to “see” virtual citizens perish in a preventable disaster.
There are other ways a Digital Twin Division could add value across federal, state, and local governments.
As we upgrade aging infrastructure, smart cities will emerge, providing access to data on all aspects of a city. Digital twins will give cities the ability to predict things like degradation over time of roads, buildings, and parks; the impacts of sun blockage on residents living adjacent to new buildings; transportation movement and activity of everything from micro-mobility, ride sharing and autonomous drones to better utilize and plan its mobility infrastructure.
When it comes to sustainability, digital twin technology can be used to model energy markets and portfolios, cut carbon emissions by modeling the financial and technology path to zero carbon emission for building owners and public transportation. If the government requires corporations to cut emissions, why not help them with specific models of how it can be done?
On the other side of sustainability, the tremendous impact of climate change is already being felt. A Digital Twin Division could model the effects of flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, and other disasters to identify and fortify vulnerable areas in advance.
Digital twin technology can bring a data-driven approach to food freshness practices and policies, benefitting both consumers and the environment. Zero hunger is number 2 on the United Nations’ list of 17 sustainable development goals to transform our world by 2030. Unfortunately, research has shown that fruits and vegetables comprise 85 percent of food waste by mass. Using digital twins, the government could provide programs for farmers and logistics companies to help predict spoilage, plan supply chain optimization, and mitigate waste to ensure more food availability for the areas that need it.
Already offering so much possibility to improve the federal government’s response to and planning for numerous emerging – and even ongoing – disruptions, the time to act on digital twins and the promise of AI is now.
The author, Frank Diana is a Principal Futurist, Thought Leader, and Frequent Keynote Speaker as well as a managing partner at Tata Consultancy Services.
