Industrial Metaverse — So, what is it?
Industrial metaverse’s projected revenue is $100B by year 2030.
Well, of all the current metaverse sectors — consumer, enterprise and industrial, it is the industrial metaverse that is expected to make the most impact with a projected revenue of $100B by year 2030 (i.e., in six years from now). Its potential in the mid to long-term is seen as an ‘economic enabler for many industries’ by the WEF. As difficult as it is to foresee its eventual implementation, there is little doubt that it will be a multiplayer game of considerable socio-economic and environmental value. However, its overall success will also greatly depend on advances in other emerging tech such as digital twins, IoT, AI/ML, AR/VR, edge computing, high-fidelity physics-based replicas, blockchain, etc.
Currently there are three main metaverse sectors:
• Consumer metaverse for games and entertainment,
• Enterprise metaverse for work and collaboration,
• Industrial metaverse for digital replicas of machines and/or entire manufacturing plants meant to mirror the real world to simulate processes and production. [1]
And of these three, it is the industrial metaverse that is expected to make the most impact with a projected revenue of $100B by year 2030 according to ABI Research, Evaluation of the Enterprise Metaverse Opportunity, Third Quarter, 2022. The image below, courtesy MIT Technology Review Insights, shows the market share projections for each metaverse sector in the coming years.
Away from the immersive entertainment angle of the mainstream consumer metaverse, the industrial metaverse is more purpose-driven and aimed at solving real-world business problems by increasing competitivety and sustainability, at the same time. It will, however, necessitate the convergence of a number of other emerging technologies — yet to reach maturity on their own, such as, digital twins, IoT (internet of things), AI/ML (artificial intelligence and machine learning), AR/VR (augmented reality and virtual reality), 5G/6G connectivity, cloud and edge computing, etc., just to name a few.
Once up and running, the industrial metaverse will make it possible to simulate manufacturing of new products and/or put in place new processes, before ever investing a dime in the real world implementation of the same → positive environmental impact.
Watch this <2 minute simulation from the manufacturing sector that will give you a much better idea of what we are talking about here:
Digital Twin
The industrial metaverse is meant to bring the real and the digital world together — with a little help from digital twin technology i.e., physics-based, hyperreal replicas or 3D models of real-world assets driven by a constant stream of data processed by AI/ML.
However, this digital twin technology is still in the making. An insightful academic paper on the topic is — “Unreal” factories: Next generation of digital twins of machines and factories in the Industrial Metaverse, by B. Starly, P. Koprov, A. Bharadwaj et al., 2023. [2]
It proposes ‘ten technologies necessary for ‘Unreal’ factories,’ (such as in the video simulation above) going from factory illumination, shading and reflections on machines, to audio and smell generation for the factories.
Other Use Cases
Some interesting use cases can also be seen in the medical, education and training fields, where immersive, hyperreal, virtual environments can help with safety trainings and/or to virtually assist in surgical operations (see image below). Again all very heavily reliant on physics-based, high definition 3D rendering of models, and AR/VR. The Image below is from the first spine surgery with the help of augmented reality (AR) performed at John Hopkins in 2020. [3]
Tourism industry will not be lagging far behind either. Check out the digital twin of Helsinki, Finland: http://virtualhelsinki.fi/. It was a project started in 2018, I do not know what has become of it now, but it remains relevant and is a great illustration of the ethos behind such an implementation. [4]
Their vision of ‘Virtual Tourism’ is best described in their own words, “A virtual tourist might move from present day to history, visit places that are difficult to access or go shopping in a virtual souvenir store and have the items delivered home through the mail. Virtual tourism will enable fast trips around the world and meeting other tourists and locals, while being the most eco-friendly way to travel.”
So, what does the industrial metaverse really look like — you ask?
Well, what it could, should or would look like — no one can say, only time will tell. However, there are a number of isolated, independent initiatives and prototypes being developed by industry R&D teams worldwide. And the WEF, in their series of reports on the topic, advise industry actors to keep interoperability in mind, build strong ecosystems and partnerships, define clear objectives and not to lock themselves into ‘siloed landscapes.’ [5]
Today it looks something like the Figure 4 below, an example of a team collaborating in the industrial metaverse:
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References:
- The emergent industrial metaverse, MIT Technology Review, 2023, https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/29/1070355/the-emergent-industrial-metaverse/
- Binil Starly, Pavel Koprov, Akshay Bharadwaj, Thomas Batchelder, Bennett Breitenbach, “Unreal” factories: Next generation of digital twins of machines and factories in the Industrial Metaverse, Manufacturing Letters, 2023, Pages 50–52, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mfglet.2023.07.021
- On the path to the industrial metaverse. Capgemini, https://prod.ucwe.capgemini.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Industrial-Metaverse-F5.pdf
- In 2018, Finland’s capital Helsinki launched “Virtual Helsinki”, http://virtualhelsinki.fi/, Making of Virtual Helsinki: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNefQvZelFg
- Exploring the Industrial Metaverse: A Roadmap to the Future, World Economic Forum, 2023. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Industrial_Metaverse_2023.pdf
