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The industrial metaverse: A game-changer for operational technology

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The industrial metaverse: A game-changer for operational technology



How enterprises can unlock the full potential of the industrial
metaverse.

Even as technologists are trying to envision what the metaverse will
bring for businesses and consumers, the industrial metaverse is
already transforming how people design, manufacture, and interact with
physical entities across industries.


“The industrial metaverse combines physical-digital fusion and human
augmentation for industrial applications and contains digital
representations of physical industrial environments, systems, assets
and spaces that people can control, communicate, and interact with.”


Thierry Klein, president of Bell Labs Solutions Research at Nokia

While definitions abound and it remains to be seen how the industrial
metaverse will fully unfold, digital twins are increasingly viewed as
one of its key applications. Used for everything from creating
ecosystems when planning a new city to working out iterations of
manufacturing processes, digital twins were first proposed in 2002 and
later became a vital technology when the fourth industrial revolution
(Industry 4.0) accelerated automation and digitization across industries.

Simply put, a digital twin is a virtual replica of a product or
process used to predict how the physical entity will perform
throughout its lifecycle.
BMW, for instance, created a virtual twin of its production plant in
Bavaria before building the physical facility. Boeing is using a
digital twin development model
to design its airplanes. And
“Virtual Singapore”
is a digital representation of the Southeast Asian nation that the
government created to support its policy decisions and test new
technologies. The increasing buzz surrounding digital twins is fueling
expectations for the industrial metaverse.

Raghav Sahgal, president of the cloud and network services business
at Nokia

According to ABI Research, revenues for industrial digital twin and
simulation and industrial extended reality will hit $22.73 billion by
2025 as organizations use Industry 4.0 tools such as artificial
intelligence (AI), machine learning, edge computing, and extended
reality to accelerate digital transformation.

Virtual spaces revenue (global)

  • Consumer appeal driven
  • Reliant on trends and network effect
  • Fragmented monetization, with growth from 2026

Immersive collaboration and related cloud revenue (global)

  • Business value driven
  • Solution and device innovation
  • Good monetization potential, with growth from 2025

Digital twin and simulation and industrial extended reality revenue (global)

  • Operational results driven
  • Industrial automation focus
  • High monetization potential, with early traction

Source: ABI Research, Evaluation of the Enterprise Metaverse
Opportunity, Third Quarter, 2022

Experts say a convergence of maturing technologies is fueling the
growth of the industrial metaverse. Foremost among these, according to
Sahgal, is 5G. “This really is a very big inflection point in the
industry,” he says. As he explains, “5G creates interesting new
vectors of capability” that enable lower latency (delay) and more
precise exchange of data, both key for driving metaverse applications.

Creating digital twins is just one of the many advantages of the
industrial metaverse. Klein says the industrial metaverse can reach “a
much larger scale with increasing complexity by creating digital twins
of entire systems such as factories, airports, cargo terminals, or
cities—not just digital twins of individual machines or devices that
we have seen so far.” He points to Nokia Bell Labs’
technology-partnership
with indoor vertical farming company AeroFarms, started in 2020, as an
example of how the industrial metaverse’s immersive reality, sensing,
and machine-learning capabilities can be used to gain operational
insights. “It’s an early example,” he notes, “and you can see how some
of the key technological elements are being developed to build toward
a full-scale metaverse.”

By combining its AI-based autonomous drone-control solution and
advanced machine-learning capabilities with machine vision tools,
Nokia Bell Labs has created a technology that can track the growth of
millions of plants. “We have developed a completely autonomous drone
solution with multiple drones flying through this farm,” says Klein.
That allows the farm to monitor details such as the height and color
of its plants, spot poor growth areas, and predict the production
yield.

“We actually built a complete digital twin of the farm that gives the
growers a real-time picture of the entire production throughout the
farm,” says Klein. With data analysis, the farm can optimize its
water, energy, and nutrient consumption; speed up troubleshooting;
improve accuracy in yield forecast; and maintain a consistently high
quality.

The industrial metaverse could also bolster remote collaboration and
optimize processes, says Klein. Users could tap into its capabilities
as a dynamic, multistakeholder ecosystem, using intelligent analytics
to process datasets and gain deeper insights into problems. Nokia’s
collaboration with Taqtile is one example.

The companies joined hands in 2021 to offer an augmented reality
training and work-instruction platform, which leverages industrial
edge cloud computing, the internet of things, and 4G or 5G networks
and enables users to communicate in real time with experts. “It all
comes down to having access to more information and better
understanding that may not be visible to the naked eye, giving you
more insight about what that information means,” says Klein. The
platform enables users to extract the most useful information from
complex data, allowing them to make intelligent decisions, interact
with and control the environment around them, and go back to
collaborative design.


For skeptics, however, the industrial metaverse—with all its touted
possibilities—may sound extremely idealistic. Klein admits, “We should
cool the hype a little bit and take a pragmatic approach to solving
real-world problems by leveraging the enabling technologies of
physical-digital fusion and human augmentation.”

He likens the metaverse to the internet in the early 1990s. “I think
the metaverse will be similar where we cannot imagine all the
applications and its impact on our personal and professional lives
right now,” he says. “There are, however, already a lot of practical
examples and very concrete progress is being made.” Still, Sahgal says
certain obstacles need to be overcome. These include scalability,
which is one of the metaverse’s biggest challenges, making 5G
investments crucial because the metaverse “will be pretty immense in
terms of data and video consumption.”

For mission-critical industrial applications, the metaverse will
require low-latency, massive machine communications and high
reliability, in addition to fast network speeds. Edge computing is
another must-have because of the requirement for almost zero
latency—decentralized local edge data centers close to users will be
needed for people to interact with one another and use devices to
access the metaverse.


“It would be very difficult for people to carry intricate, heavy
headsets,” says Sahgal. “Edge compute will enable much leaner, lighter
headgear by offloading a large part of the compute from the device to
an edge infrastructure—while also providing superior speed and low
latency capabilities. Without edge computing, there will simply be no
metaverse.”

Getting to the metaverse will take more than sophisticated devices
though—it will need to be a collaborative effort. “Nobody will
actually own or dominate the metaverse,” says Sahgal. “It’ll be all
kinds of applications, devices, and other things coming together.” To
facilitate that, exposing the network as code will be an important
foundation. “The network’s capabilities are represented as a piece of
code to the application development community, which they can embed
into their applications and then consume those capabilities,” he
explains. “And hence, the network becomes very programmable by the
ecosystem.” In addition, software-as-a-service will help more
organizations access the industrial metaverse and in turn, facilitate
agility and rapid innovation.

Meanwhile, Klein compares building the metaverse to having the right
selection of blocks and interfaces to connect them in various ways.
“Imagine that you bought a Lego set to build a model plane,” he
explains. “Initially, you’re quite happy with building that plane, but
after a while you are bored and you want to build something else, say
a boat, or a car, or a house. How do you build something different
that matches your creative interest? It’s the same foundational
building blocks from the original Lego set that you reuse, but you put
them together in different ways.”

For the industrial metaverse, those building blocks are the enabling
modules, applications, and software assets. “You will connect them
together in different ways,” says Klein, “using application
programming interfaces to create new solutions that solve your
specific industrial challenges and match the business logic of your
use cases.” An ecosystem of partners, technology and network providers,
data producers and owners, and application developers will contribute
to these building blocks. Collectively, they facilitate a digital
marketplace and lead to new and unprecedented levels of innovation,
creativity, and agile and collaborative service creation.

As with any innovative technology, security is paramount, especially
because
cyberattacks
have surged in recent years, with criminals employing increasingly
sophisticated technology such as AI, ransomware-as-a-service, and
deepfakes. Sahgal says cybersecurity will become even more important
in the industrial metaverse: “That’s where you’re dealing with very
mission-critical data; if that gets compromised, it could have a huge
impact on that specific industry as well.”

Keeping people’s identities secure and protecting the data shared
within virtual collaboration will also be integral, especially across
a decentralized ecosystem of stakeholders who may not have
pre-established business and relationships with one another.

The greatest share of enterprises and communication service providers
believe the metaverse will be here within 10 years and the
organizations need to start preparing now, according to a joint survey
by Nokia and Gartner Peer Insights.

Communications service providers

Enthusiasm for the metaverse is intensifying

Believe it will transform the way we work

See the opportunity for new shared experiences and augmented reality

Believe it will benefit industry

Only…

Consider the metaverse as hype

Organizations must prepare now

Think the metaverse is already here

Think the metaverse is 5-10 years away but organizations must
prepare now

Think it’s a long way off and has nothing to do with them

Source: Nokia, 2022

While increased demand for performance, ultra-reliability, and
advanced cybersecurity need to be addressed before the metaverse can
be fully utilized on a global scale, experts say companies should not
wait to capitalize on this new wave of technology. “It starts with
awareness,” says Sahgal. “Acknowledging that this is not an experiment
anymore.” But awareness should also be accompanied by the right
technology—intelligent, autonomous, cloud-native networks with high
bandwidth and ultra-low latency. Industries will also have to
modernize their infrastructure to make it much more open and
accessible to participate in the industrial metaverse.

Both Sahgal and Klein say they believe early users of the industrial
metaverse will be concentrated in certain industries, particularly
those involving physical assets, such as manufacturing, logistics, and
transportation. The health-care industry could also benefit from
metaverse applications, specifically in avenues such as telemedicine
and robotic surgery. “The use cases are infinite, quite frankly,
because you can apply it almost to any industry,” says Sahgal. While
much about the metaverse remains unknown, its endless possibilities
seem to be the only certainty.

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The hunter-gatherer groups at the heart of a microbiome gold rush

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The hunter-gatherer groups at the heart of a microbiome gold rush


The first step to finding out is to catalogue what microbes we might have lost. To get as close to ancient microbiomes as possible, microbiologists have begun studying multiple Indigenous groups. Two have received the most attention: the Yanomami of the Amazon rainforest and the Hadza, in northern Tanzania. 

Researchers have made some startling discoveries already. A study by Sonnenburg and his colleagues, published in July, found that the gut microbiomes of the Hadza appear to include bugs that aren’t seen elsewhere—around 20% of the microbe genomes identified had not been recorded in a global catalogue of over 200,000 such genomes. The researchers found 8.4 million protein families in the guts of the 167 Hadza people they studied. Over half of them had not previously been identified in the human gut.

Plenty of other studies published in the last decade or so have helped build a picture of how the diets and lifestyles of hunter-gatherer societies influence the microbiome, and scientists have speculated on what this means for those living in more industrialized societies. But these revelations have come at a price.

A changing way of life

The Hadza people hunt wild animals and forage for fruit and honey. “We still live the ancient way of life, with arrows and old knives,” says Mangola, who works with the Olanakwe Community Fund to support education and economic projects for the Hadza. Hunters seek out food in the bush, which might include baboons, vervet monkeys, guinea fowl, kudu, porcupines, or dik-dik. Gatherers collect fruits, vegetables, and honey.

Mangola, who has met with multiple scientists over the years and participated in many research projects, has witnessed firsthand the impact of such research on his community. Much of it has been positive. But not all researchers act thoughtfully and ethically, he says, and some have exploited or harmed the community.

One enduring problem, says Mangola, is that scientists have tended to come and study the Hadza without properly explaining their research or their results. They arrive from Europe or the US, accompanied by guides, and collect feces, blood, hair, and other biological samples. Often, the people giving up these samples don’t know what they will be used for, says Mangola. Scientists get their results and publish them without returning to share them. “You tell the world [what you’ve discovered]—why can’t you come back to Tanzania to tell the Hadza?” asks Mangola. “It would bring meaning and excitement to the community,” he says.

Some scientists have talked about the Hadza as if they were living fossils, says Alyssa Crittenden, a nutritional anthropologist and biologist at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, who has been studying and working with the Hadza for the last two decades.

The Hadza have been described as being “locked in time,” she adds, but characterizations like that don’t reflect reality. She has made many trips to Tanzania and seen for herself how life has changed. Tourists flock to the region. Roads have been built. Charities have helped the Hadza secure land rights. Mangola went abroad for his education: he has a law degree and a master’s from the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy program at the University of Arizona.

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The Download: a microbiome gold rush, and Eric Schmidt’s election misinformation plan

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The Download: a microbiome gold rush, and Eric Schmidt’s election misinformation plan


Over the last couple of decades, scientists have come to realize just how important the microbes that crawl all over us are to our health. But some believe our microbiomes are in crisis—casualties of an increasingly sanitized way of life. Disturbances in the collections of microbes we host have been associated with a whole host of diseases, ranging from arthritis to Alzheimer’s.

Some might not be completely gone, though. Scientists believe many might still be hiding inside the intestines of people who don’t live in the polluted, processed environment that most of the rest of us share. They’ve been studying the feces of people like the Yanomami, an Indigenous group in the Amazon, who appear to still have some of the microbes that other people have lost. 

But there is a major catch: we don’t know whether those in hunter-gatherer societies really do have “healthier” microbiomes—and if they do, whether the benefits could be shared with others. At the same time, members of the communities being studied are concerned about the risk of what’s called biopiracy—taking natural resources from poorer countries for the benefit of wealthier ones. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Eric Schmidt has a 6-point plan for fighting election misinformation

—by Eric Schmidt, formerly the CEO of Google, and current cofounder of philanthropic initiative Schmidt Futures

The coming year will be one of seismic political shifts. Over 4 billion people will head to the polls in countries including the United States, Taiwan, India, and Indonesia, making 2024 the biggest election year in history.

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Navigating a shifting customer-engagement landscape with generative AI

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Navigating a shifting customer-engagement landscape with generative AI


A strategic imperative

Generative AI’s ability to harness customer data in a highly sophisticated manner means enterprises are accelerating plans to invest in and leverage the technology’s capabilities. In a study titled “The Future of Enterprise Data & AI,” Corinium Intelligence and WNS Triange surveyed 100 global C-suite leaders and decision-makers specializing in AI, analytics, and data. Seventy-six percent of the respondents said that their organizations are already using or planning to use generative AI.

According to McKinsey, while generative AI will affect most business functions, “four of them will likely account for 75% of the total annual value it can deliver.” Among these are marketing and sales and customer operations. Yet, despite the technology’s benefits, many leaders are unsure about the right approach to take and mindful of the risks associated with large investments.

Mapping out a generative AI pathway

One of the first challenges organizations need to overcome is senior leadership alignment. “You need the necessary strategy; you need the ability to have the necessary buy-in of people,” says Ayer. “You need to make sure that you’ve got the right use case and business case for each one of them.” In other words, a clearly defined roadmap and precise business objectives are as crucial as understanding whether a process is amenable to the use of generative AI.

The implementation of a generative AI strategy can take time. According to Ayer, business leaders should maintain a realistic perspective on the duration required for formulating a strategy, conduct necessary training across various teams and functions, and identify the areas of value addition. And for any generative AI deployment to work seamlessly, the right data ecosystems must be in place.

Ayer cites WNS Triange’s collaboration with an insurer to create a claims process by leveraging generative AI. Thanks to the new technology, the insurer can immediately assess the severity of a vehicle’s damage from an accident and make a claims recommendation based on the unstructured data provided by the client. “Because this can be immediately assessed by a surveyor and they can reach a recommendation quickly, this instantly improves the insurer’s ability to satisfy their policyholders and reduce the claims processing time,” Ayer explains.

All that, however, would not be possible without data on past claims history, repair costs, transaction data, and other necessary data sets to extract clear value from generative AI analysis. “Be very clear about data sufficiency. Don’t jump into a program where eventually you realize you don’t have the necessary data,” Ayer says.

The benefits of third-party experience

Enterprises are increasingly aware that they must embrace generative AI, but knowing where to begin is another thing. “You start off wanting to make sure you don’t repeat mistakes other people have made,” says Ayer. An external provider can help organizations avoid those mistakes and leverage best practices and frameworks for testing and defining explainability and benchmarks for return on investment (ROI).

Using pre-built solutions by external partners can expedite time to market and increase a generative AI program’s value. These solutions can harness pre-built industry-specific generative AI platforms to accelerate deployment. “Generative AI programs can be extremely complicated,” Ayer points out. “There are a lot of infrastructure requirements, touch points with customers, and internal regulations. Organizations will also have to consider using pre-built solutions to accelerate speed to value. Third-party service providers bring the expertise of having an integrated approach to all these elements.”

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