How TCS is creating digital twins of enterprises, cities

Digital twins have been around for decades. Engineers used physics and materials models to design things like power plant boilers, and aircraft engines. Early last decade, with the emergence of sophisticated sensors, and the ability to analyse large amounts of data affordably, engineers could also create digital twins of how exactly, say, all the equipment in a power plant run. The digital twin can run the simulation to check if an equipment or the plant is performing as per its original design. If there is a deviation, it will help you analyse the problem, and possibly even resolve it, without shutting the equipment down.
But there are clear laws of physics and chemistry involved in these simulations. Now, what if you had to similarly model business processes, or an entire enterprise or even a city? That’s the question K Ananth Krishnan, CTO at TCS, and his research team asked themselves in 2012-13. In these areas, people are involved, and they behave differently. Business processes are different. Cities are highly complex ecosystems. “TCS has a very strong history of research in related disciplines. Our culture is to bring inter-disciplinary research together.