Digital twins are making companies more efficient

WHEN a passenger in search of a taxi orders an Uber, all it takes is a few taps on a smartphone to make a car appear, as if by magic. Traffic permitting, they are soon whisked to their final destination. But the magic tricks do not end there. As soon as that screen is pressed, the passenger – along with all of Uber’s other riders, drivers and the systems that connect them – becomes part of a comprehensive digital replica of the company’s inner workings.

This digital twin, one of the most sophisticated of its kind, allows Uber to adjust its operations in real time. Annoyed passengers may think that this enables the company’s “surge pricing”, when fares suddenly spike to balance ride demand and driver supply. This is partly true. But the more immediate and more positive effect is that the digital twin allows for up-to-the-minute route optimisations through ever-changing city traffic.

If current technology trends hold, such end-to-end digital representations of a company’s inner workings – and, increasingly, its ecosystem of customers and suppliers – will no longer be the speciality of tech firms such as Uber. Artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, will make it much easier for all sorts of businesses to build virtual replicas and oversee them on a scale managers alone never could.