The next wave of digital twins in Latin America

Driven by the mining and energy sectors, digital twins are making headway in Latin America.

The most advanced industries have adequate connectivity and have made progress in the digitization of processes and data management.

The next wave will come from the public sector, especially cities, which will seek to take advantage of technology to improve services such as transportation, tourism and citizen security.

According to figures from the Digital Twin Consortium, the smart twin market is growing by around 20% annually globally. Latin America could experience similar growth.

BNamericas speaks with Carlos Toro Rodríguez, director and head of data and analytics at NTT Data Chile, and Víctor León Marambio, CTO and director of Ibero-America innovation in digital technology at the same company, about the growth of the technology.

BNamericas: In which sectors are digital twins being implemented?

Toro Rodríguez: Implementation in Latin America is quite positive. Chile's mining industry is very interested in digital twins, which are already being implemented. Also, utilities and all energy generation. In Colombia we have projects with large oil companies where we do monitoring and even training.

In Europe, things are more closely linked to projects in automotive or aeronautical companies, and that implementation is then reflected here. What Renault does in France is replicated in the assembly plant it has in Colombia called Sofasa.

Smart cities are going to start to really take hold here. In Spain, we already have several city councils, including Madrid, where we’re creating digital twins for purposes such as thermal comfort, traffic management, etc.

I believe that little by little, large cities in Latin America will begin to see that interest in unifying all the data they have [in a digital twin].

Today, in Latin America, we have projects mainly in mining, utilities, and oil and gas. These sectors are where the foundations are best laid because they are already capturing data, have controlled processes, and need visualization and optimization. So, a digital twin is the logical step.

León Marambio: From the point of view of innovation, I think technological evolution has been helping us. Computing capacity has been changing and now the role that artificial intelligence is starting to play in the equation of digital twins is also generating a lot of interest.

BNamericas: How have technological changes improved the affordability of a digital twin?

Toro Rodríguez: Implementation time has decreased. We're members of the Digital Twin Consortium, and through it, we have reached standardization and a way of building modular digital twins.

Now, we no longer make digital twins; we build services on digital twins, which reduces the time required. A micro factory takes two months of work.

In addition, we make a conscious effort to understand what capabilities need to be developed and which ones can be brought in. If a capability is commercially available, we use it. This dramatically reduces timelines and lowers ongoing investment in development.

And it also allows you to be super flexible when deploying these services because you can do it in the cloud, on servers or on a computer.

BNamericas: How much do you think the digital twins market will grow in the region?

Toro Rodríguez: There's organic growth and leverage in certain capabilities. Many times before implementing a digital twin we have to do a project where we restructure the business architecture or IT systems to be able to support what will be there higher up.

The Digital Twin Consortium says that growth could be close to 20% annually globally. I have a study from Latin America that indicates that [this growth] is going to be seen much more in industries that are already connected and much less in those that are less connected.

The growth of digital twins will be organic and will continue along the trend proposed by the consortium.

León Marambio: There's a growth vision of around 20% in Latin America, especially in countries that greatly influence the regional parameters, such as Brazil and Mexico, where we have large transnational industries that replicate in the region the way of operating that they're exploring in Europe.

BNamericas: How important is it to have local datacenters for the growth of digital twins?

Toro Rodríguez: It is important, yes and no. Normally, what matters is that the datacenter is close to where you’re producing the data because the cost of transmitting those bits is very expensive. So, countries that have datacenters like Brazil or Chile have an advantage.

Now, there’s also an edge computing aspect. Today, there are digital micro twins, which don’t need a large amount of data to make quick decisions and, therefore, don’t require high processing but do require low latency. This happens in manufacturing and the food or cosmetics sector.

So, where do we need to aim? I think hybrid solutions.

The cloud is here to stay and economically it’s the most suitable solution because you forget about licenses, maintenance, rooms with controlled temperature... there are also no fears about data security because hyperscalers have done a great job in cybersecurity.

BNamericas: Could you share some examples of digital twins that you have used in Latin America?

Toro Rodríguez: In Chile, one of the first digital twins was for the shift change in mining operations.

Previously, if there was a problem in the mine, the mechanism for reporting it could be a booth, sending an email, etc. What happened was that there was a disparity when it came to having that information in real time.

We created a completely groundbreaking digital twin. We didn't create a 3D model [of the mine] but instead created a map and put a digital twin into Microsoft Teams to report safety issues. We used Teams' capabilities to take photos, videos, georeferenced data and assign a person to review the issue.

This solution can be extended to other types of companies. An electrical installation company in Chile has already approached us to use this system to monitor its crews. This has not yet been finalized, but hopefully we can do a project with them using the same technology.

León Marambio: On the other hand, in Colombia, a hydrocarbon transportation company was creating a digital twin to monitor and prevent situations in infrastructure it has deployed in remote areas.

BNamericas: And have you had discussions about developing digital twins for smart cities?

Toro Rodríguez: Not yet, but it’s coming soon for cities that have a tourist interest or heritage issues. There are many that have virtual tours and facilities modeled.

We also see this for critical infrastructure. The Barcelona football club created a digital twin for its stadium [Camp Nou] to manage the flow of people and security in the event of emergencies or terrorist attacks.

We will start seeing more digital twins because critical infrastructure is everywhere.