Value from digital twins

Digital twins—or virtual representations tied to physical objects, processes, people, or environments—are touted by think tanks, consultancies, tech giants, and startups as crucial to what the World Economic Forum calls “Industrial Revolution 4.0.” With real-time data generated via sensors, digital twins promise to autonomously monitor, simulate, and even modulate the “real” world. While the market for digital twins is estimated at $10bn globally, the value they create beyond their commodity status can be difficult to ascertain. Examining digital twins at scales from the individual to the warehouse to the planet, this commentary argues that digital twins exploit existing but disaggregated or noninteroperable systems by assembling them into new arrangements that intensify digital enclosures. Digital twins invert the traditional hierarchy between managerial planning and the material world of bodies, labor, and enterprise operations because the coordination of decision making is posited as a site of value creation that can be undertaken by new digital twin platform architectures.