Imagining Canada's Digital Twin

The initial phase of the Imagining Canada’s Digital Twin project involves exploring the idea of a digital twin for the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner operator (AECOO) industries, but our scope is not limited to the AECOO. Our goal is to imagine Canada’s digital twin, which involves opening our imaginations to all the possibilities of what that could mean. This is an opportunity to explore concepts beyond what exists now.

A digital twin requires three parts: a physical product, it’s digital equivalent, and data connections between the two, forming a feedback loop. An example would be a building in the physical world, such as the Canal Building on the Carleton University campus. The Canal building is equipped with sensors that connect it to its virtual version, a building information model (BIM). Combining BIM with the Internet of Things means information like building occupancy, electricity consumption, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) or other systems, can be monitored and managed more efficiently. By collecting data from the actual building, we can visualize that information in the BIM, in real-time, and make changes to improve building performance, and effectively manage the entire ecosystem.

Currently, digital twin technology is being applied to many different industries all over the world. It was originally developed for product design, but that has expanded to include things like buildings, transportation systems, and even entire cities. Places like London, Singapore, and Helsinki are using digital twins to optimize how their city is managed, make cities “smarter”, and in some cases, even use it for virtual tourism. These are just a few examples of digital twins at a city scale but what if we take that further? What would a digital twin of a country look like? What about a digital twin of Canada?

This was the question CIMS and our co-applicants proposed in an application for the New Frontiers in Research Fund. The Exploration grant funds high-risk, high-reward research. The project, Imagining Canada’s Digital Twin (ICDT), is the exploration of the idea of a digital twin of Canada. Together with professors and researchers in academia, industry experts, and other interested groups, our aim is to imagine what a digital twin of Canada could be. We are establishing a national, inclusive, and multidisciplinary research consortium for developing the technical, cultural, and ethical framework for building Canada’s digital twin. Our goal is not to resolve the question of a digital twin for Canada, but to determine its feasibility. What would be required to see it realized?