‘The digital twin work is one of the most exciting digital developments at the moment. My favourite comparison I have heard is how the work the National Digital Twin programme is doing now is going to be as important for society as the work Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues were doing 30 years ago when they standardised the internet.”

Simon Evans, director for digital engineering, at Atkins, is certainly not reining in his optimism. The twin concept – digital replicas of real-world infrastructure – is taking a stronger foothold in the sector. Several bodies, from the government’s National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) to the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the Open Data Institute (ODI) are all staunch advocates of developing the potential reach of the technology.

Researcher Markets and Markets values the digital twin market at $3.8bn in 2019, but it predicts the value will swell tenfold to $35.8bn by 2025, citing the growing adoption of emerging technologies such as the “internet of things” and the prospect of digital twin technology in industries such as healthcare and transportation as key factors in its forecast.

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