In essence, digital twins are software representations of assets and processes, which are enhanced with capabilities not present in the real-world entity. There are many proposed definitions which emphasize different aspects of digital twins, and the concept is still evolving, but there are typically a few common characteristics listed here and illustrated in the picture below:
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Digital twins are often applied to big expensive machines, such as jet engines or power plants. In these cases, there are high costs associated with unexpected downtime and the consequence of a failure can be severe. With the enhanced knowledge you get from the digital twin, it is possible to optimize service windows and predict when different components need to be replaced. The advances in compute capacity and recent progress in AI-based analytics makes the concept attractive to a wider set of use cases and in the IoT area, ranging from simple devices like temperature sensors and light bulbs to entire cities with a complex web of traffic, utilities and buildings. There are many different initiatives pushing this ahead, both in standards and commercial offerings.
Turning our attention back to mobile networks, they certainly fit the criteria of big machines with high consequences for downtime and failures, as well as the added complexity of massive geographical scale. With this in mind, it does make sense to apply digital twin concepts here as well, to add value in both the operations phase and the development phase. In fact, in some ways existing solutions already use core ideas from digital twins. Network planning tools have long been used to understand the current network situation and plan for upgrades to satisfy future demands. Typically, these are not real time, but they use the same basic concept of data collection, analysis and prediction to support decision processes for network build-out to satisfy future demand.
These examples are for quite specific use cases and we continue to identify additional use cases and to see how digital twins could be integrated in our 6G networks system to support development and operations. Some digital twin applications would be quite specific, focusing on one part of the network like a site or a radio cell at a high level of detail. On the other extreme, we have twins with an end-to-end view, leading to a higher-level analysis of services or network infrastructure. Other twins could focus on a specific domain like the RAN or edge clouds.
In autonomous networks, a network management system takes actions on its own to make sure services have the expected performance and that the objectives defined for network operations are fulfilled. Understanding the impact of these actions is essential and a digital twin could be used to test different actions, evaluate their impact on relevant KPIs and decide on the best options before they are implemented for live services.
To complete the digital twin, various tools and APIs for interaction need to be developed. Humans will create different scenarios and test configurations and control their execution in the twin. New visualization interfaces will also be required to present results and findings in a quick and accessible way, supporting timely decision processes. In a similar way, the digital twin must also be directly accessible from software used in development and operations, without direct involvement of humans. This access would be through management systems and AI training pipelines, but also other digital twins. In such a way, a network digital twin could be part of a larger digital twin ecosystem which could include, for example, city planning, transportation, smart buildings, and power grids.
On one hand, specialized solutions will continue to develop for the most attractive use cases and new capabilities are already being added to existing solutions. As these evolve and become more advanced, similar to the evolution we see in the IoT area, common components and frameworks will likely emerge and gradually evolve into generally applicable solutions and a platform for new digital twins.
One the other hand, there is a need to understand the bigger picture on how digital twins will fit in an evolved network architecture. There are currently efforts ongoing in standardization (IETF & ITU-T) to define architectures for digital twins in a network context. Once these mature, they will form the basis for creating frameworks and solutions for different use cases, both those mentioned above and future use cases yet to be discovered.
Then, we shifted the gym workouts and personal training to take place within the app. FITNESS SF already produced a high-quality content library within the app, simplifying the conversion to digital workouts. But we needed to enhance these video workouts, so we added the following features:
COVID-19 presented FITNESS SF with a challenging yet unique opportunity. The fitness firm rose to that challenge by taking the gym experience digital, and they continue to evolve as California gyms reopen. The culmination of our work is an app that keeps FITNESS SF members connected and fit, while also keeping the business fit to survive.
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A decade has passed since the term digital transformation was coined, but it has taken a life-changing pandemic for digital capabilities to substantively alter how businesses operate. As a result, business leaders from every industry now feel the strategic necessity of investing in digital platforms, products, and services.
Central banks have been eying the emergence of privately issued digital currencies with a mix of excitement and anxiety and some began experimenting with their own versions of crypto: central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Advocates say CBDCs offer an alternative to private digital currencies that will enable central banks to retain their control over national monetary supplies, better combat money laundering and fraud, and even advance financial inclusion.
Yasmin Bin-Humam: Well, I can't say I know anything about Central Bank digital currencies and digital currencies writ large. I know the buzzwords like cryptocurrency and crypto mining, and my children are constantly asking me for these particular digital coins to spend in their video games. So that's mostly what I know. And of course, I remember the hype around Libra, which was Facebook's plan digital currency.
Sai Krishna Kumaraswamy: Well, as a consumer, why would I spend a digital coin worth $30 today to buy, let's say a T-shirt, when it might be worth $300 or even $3,000 if I held onto it for a few months. That's just too much uncertainty.
Mehmet Kerse: As you know, CBDC is issued by a central bank. It's the liability of a central bank and issued in domestic currency. There are two types of CBDC, wholesale and retail. Wholesale CBDC would be limited to users such as banks and other financial institutions. Retail CBDC is for the use of public, such as individuals and businesses. Retail CBDC would offer any way to store value and make payments. CBDC are different from other digital currencies, such as crypto assets. Money typically has three basic functions. First, store value, seconds, medium of exchange, and third unit of account. Unlike Fiat currencies, crypto assets are far from fully satisfying all those functions, crypto assets have little use so far as a store of value or a unit of accounts because their value is highly volatile. Also limited acceptance for payments limits crypto assets used as a medium of exchange.
Sai Krishna Kumaraswamy: CBDCs presented an alternative to private digital currencies. They enable governments to reap the benefits of crypto-assets while limiting some of the risks. A CBDC is legal tender. It can be converted into - and used in the same ways - as cash. But unlike a crypto-asset, it is controlled by policy makers. The launch of the Libra project helped to ramp up interest in CBDC research and development.
So that brings us to the financial inclusion benefits of CBDCs. And we certainly see that they have the potential to advance inclusion, particularly because digital finance has shown that it can reach the unbanked at scale in ways that traditional finance has been unable to. But I think we see CBDCs as just one tool in the arsenal that regulators and policymakers may have to address the question of financial inclusion. And it certainly raises a number of potential challenges.
Mahesh Uttamchandani: one of the challenges to reaching the last mile, of individuals in a country is their ability to cash in and cash out because even in a largely digital economy, there will always be need for cash. And so, agent networks played an important role in the cash in and cash out part of the economy and CBDCs, will experience the same challenges that mobile money and other tools experience in cash in and cash out.
Mehmet Kerse: One of the questions for a developing country is how the customer onboarding will be handled. This is especially important for the countries where most of the population does not have a government issued ID. Will there be simplified due diligence rules to advance financial inclusion? Would remote onboarding of customers be possible? Will there be some form of electronic KYC and digital identity solutions that CBDC customers can use?
These are some questions and there are other considerations for central banks. For example, will the CBDC be integrated to the existing payment systems such as mobile money? How will the customers access central bank digital currency? Will the central bank design a two-tier CBDC system where the existing financial institutions act as intermediaries? And how will the two-tier system look like?
On the digital divide, I don't think we can stress enough the importance of making sure that, the tools that you use to drive inclusion don't inadvertently result in deeper or different types of exclusion. My parents are not great with digital tools. I was asking my dad to copy and paste a text message from one text you received into another. And he was like, what's copy and paste. So you have to kind of be cognizant of the capabilities and the limitations of your population and not kind of push too hard, too fast to achieve this kind of digital vision. 2ff7e9595c
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