In the 21st century, the concept of a twin need not be confined to fraternal or identical--a twin can be digital too. Digital twins have caught the eyes of some of the biggest companies in the world--Amazon and Nvidia, for instance, both made announcements about new digital-twin initiatives within the last month--as well as those of specialists like infrastructure engineering software company Bentley Systems. The concept started gaining traction at the beginning of the century, and picked up steam in the early 2010s when the rise of IoT made digital twins more feasible. As of 2020, it was estimated to be a $3.1 billion market, per Markets and Markets, and projected to grow into a $48.2 billion industry by 2026. So...what is a digital twin?

Sometimes listening to an update call is more than a revenue report update on the recent acquisitions and technology advancements being announced by a company; it's really about the vision of the leader at the helm. And that was my takeaway after the May 13, Bentley Systems Spring Update conference call for press and analysts. If you listened to Greg Bentley, CEO, Bentley Systems, closely enough you were able to read between the lines and grasp how it plans to move the construction industry forward with a highly informed construction professional using only the best in tech tools to drive infrastructure. According to Bentley, with all the right tools in hand from machine learning, reality modeling, drone data acquisition, the future is upon us now. And as a result, what role will the "digital integrator" become in making key buying decisions?