The Virtual Representation of the World is Emerging

Digital twins, i.e. exact virtual digital representations of a physical asset, process or system, are becoming increasingly more widespread. Recently, they have been emerging across industries and society levels, e.g. in the form of virtual models of wind turbines, cars, cities, factories or human organs. The rise of digital twins can be mainly attributed to their ability to integrate large amounts of data and to combine this data with advanced data processing methods such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning or high-performance computing. As by 2020 data volumes will have reached 44 trillion gigabytes, digital twins are expected to experience a similar growth resulting in a new phase of the internet that can be described as a virtual representation of the physical world which includes digital twins of all machines, people, things and organizations. In this article, we, first, recap the current status quo of digital twins including their evolution, benefits and challenges. Second, we highlight the necessity to connect digital twins in a secure way to enable the formation of a true virtual representation of the world as well as discuss associated challenges and key building blocks. Finally, we show the importance of the virtual representation of the world for telcos as well as derive a set of clear managerial implications for telco managers.