UK Digital Twins and Cyber Physical Infrastructure National Engagement

Digital Catapult is working with the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to understand the potential value of and options for a UK capability in digital twinning and wider cyber-physical infrastructure. The aim of the project is to help unleash the acceleration opportunities innovation offers industry. This will support the upcoming consultation on this area recently announced in the UK Government’s Innovation Strategy.

The global Digital Twins market has been projected to reach £34.7bn by 2026 (Markets & Markets) at a CAGR of 58%. While many Digital Twin technologies already exist, it is the combination of tools, capabilities, infrastructure and applications for specific use cases that will enable them to be exploited more quickly by industry. There is also an opportunity for the UK to gain more valuable insights about complex systems if digital twins and other complex cyber physical systems are developed to be interoperable, secure and connected.

Cyber-physical infrastructure refers to a shared physical and digital infrastructure, which could include physical infrastructure and innovation environments (testbeds and living labs) and digital tools & platforms (such as synthetic environments including digital twins, simulation and emulation tools). This has the potential to accelerate the innovation process and reduce cost and risk by providing the interoperable tools and environments for innovators to rapidly prototype, test and develop ideas. This type of infrastructure will be key to realising the massive potential of technologies such as AI, robotics and autonomous machines, advanced computing and more.

As part of this project Digital Catapult and BEIS will be hosting a series of workshops, with each focusing on an industry sector and will involve discussion of the opportunities, benefits and challenges, and options for the UK to develop a national capability.

The roundtable and project industry areas we’ll be exploring:

• Manufacturing
• Supply chains
• System integrators and technology platform providers
• Energy and utilities
• Entertainment and the experience economy
• Metaverse / AR Cloud
• Aerospace and defence
• Healthcare
• Construction, built environment and transport
• National infrastructure
• Natural environment (for example, forestry, agriculture etc.)

If you’re interested in taking part in any of the programme activities please register your interest using the form below.