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Understanding digital twins

Discover how enabling technologies create dynamic virtual representations that help organisations make better decisions, accelerate innovation and improve performance.

What is a digital twin?

" A digital twin is a digital representation of a real-world object, system, or process. It is connected to its real-world counterpart through a two-way data flow, meaning it mirrors it in all relevant aspects. <br><br>Digital twins help us monitor and affect the real world, simulate and test decisions before they are made, and understand the effects of different actions.​"

How does a digital twin work?

A digital twin operates through a fully connected, bidirectional data flow between a physical asset and its virtual representation. Real-time data continuously updates the model, creating a closed feedback loop that enables the system to monitor performance, simulate scenarios, optimise decisions and, where appropriate, implement or recommend changes in the physical asset.

By combining live operational data with modelling and simulation, digital twins provide actionable insights that help organisations improve productivity, reduce costs and accelerate innovation.

Six enabling technology areas

The UK Digital Twin Centre technology specialists provide practical support across six enabling technology areas that underpin the design, development, deployment and operation of digital twin solutions. Whether you’re exploring digital twins for the first time or advancing an existing capability, we’ll help you navigate the technologies, reduce complexity and accelerate adoption through expert guidance, hands-on collaboration and real-world application.

Data Services

Real-time data ingestion, management and quality frameworks.

Integration & Interoperability

Standards, APIs and protocols for cross-system data sharing.

Security

Trust, resilience and cyber security frameworks.

Why are organisations adopting digital twins?

01 · Innovation
Accelerate Innovation
Develop, prototype and validate products, processes and systems before physical deployment. Digital twins enable faster experimentation, helping organisations reduce development risk and bring innovations to market sooner. Up to 20–50% reduction in product development cycles.
02 · Insight
Make smarter decisions
Transform real-time and historical data into actionable insights. Digital twins improve visibility across assets and operations, enabling better planning, more informed investment decisions and faster responses to change. Planning and operational decisions can improve by 20–30%.
03 · Performance
Reduce costs and improve efficiency
Optimise processes, reduce waste and make better use of resources through modelling, simulation and predictive insights. Digital twins help organisations increase productivity while lowering operational and maintenance costs. Maintenance costs can be reduced by up to 50%, with operational efficiency improvements of 15–40%.
04 · Resilience
Improve resilience and reliability
Monitor assets in real time, anticipate failures and optimise maintenance before issues occur. By moving from reactive to predictive operations, organisations can reduce downtime and improve asset availability. Complex industries such as aerospace are achieving 10–15% reductions in unplanned downtime, with some high-impact scenarios reducing downtime-related costs by up to 80%.
05 · Sustainability
Drive sustainability
Understand how assets and processes perform to reduce waste, optimise energy use and lower emissions. Digital twins support more sustainable operations by helping organisations identify opportunities for continuous improvement. Energy consumption can be reduced by up to 10% through optimised operations.
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