Digital Twin Cities: Multi-Disciplinary Modeling and High-Performance Simulation of Cities

Magazine article, 2022

The digital twin concept has virtually exploded in recent years, as
evidenced by the exponentially growing number of scientific articles
making use of the concept.

The concept originates from the manufacturing industry where the use
of CAD models enables the creation of exact digital replicas of
components and products. The earliest use of the term dates back to
2003 and is often credited to Grieves and Vickers, but earlier references to
the concept can be found; certainly, the understanding that mathematical
and, more recently, digital models of physical systems are of enormous
importance to both science and engineering dates back centuries.

The concept has since spread from the manufacturing industry to other
disciplines, such as agriculture, electricity, vessels, manufacturing,
construction, cities, healthcare, aerospace, waste, water, transport,
and automotive.

In this short note, we present an overview of the use of digital twins
in the built environment; that is, digital twins of cities and
buildings. In this context, the term digital twin is closely linked to
the concept of smart cities (or smart buildings). The
relation between a digital city twin and a smart city is that the
digital twin is the enabling technology for making a city smart. Even
if a digital twin is not a sufficient condition for making a city
smart, it is a necessary condition.