NVIDIA’s recent unveiling of significant upgrades to its CloudXR and Omniverse technologies has sparked renewed interest in the industrial metaverse. The company’s announcement led to a roughly 10 percent increase in its stock price, bolstering confidence in its industrial endeavors and revitalizing faith in the metaverse, particularly within the enterprise sphere.
To delve into the potential of the industrial and enterprise metaverse, XR Today interviewed Kevin O’Donovan, Co-Chair of VRARA’s Industrial Metaverse and Digital Twin Committee. Based in Nice, France, O’Donovan is a tech evangelist and a recognized authority in blockchain technologies for the European Commission. He has also been a regular contributor to XR Today’s Big News Show.
Following the London-based Enterprise Metaverse Summit in late June, O’Donovan shared insights into the industrial metaverse, digital twins, and immersive XR.
During the summit, Siemens participated to discuss the necessity of elevating industrial and enterprise XR. O’Donovan drew from his direct engagement with the prominent German infrastructure firm to elucidate on this topic.
XR Today: Can you elaborate on your involvement with Siemens’ industrial XR technologies?
Kevin O’Donovan: Over the past four to five years, I have been collaborating closely with Siemens. As a global leader in industrial automation, energy systems, healthcare products, and more, Siemens has been a proponent of bridging the gap between the physical and digital realms for nearly a decade. Their focus on digitizing industries and innovating digitalization technologies, leading to the concept of digital twins, has been evident over the last couple of years.
Siemens possesses an array of design tools, a simulation center (sim center), InEx, and various automation software tools. Their presence in the 3D modeling domain, particularly for factory design, spans numerous years.
The strides they’ve made have prompted conversations within the industry about the longevity of these practices. This is echoed by others who acknowledge that constructing wind farms, for instance, involves more than mere optimism—it’s a science backed by experience, competency, Excel models, and simulations. Today, we have the computational power, algorithms, and AI to generate extensive synthetic data, transforming our ability to perform hundreds of thousands of simulations and assess complex scenarios.
Utilities worldwide leverage software to design distribution grids, simulating the impact of factors like electric vehicle adoption on substations. This transformation is unfolding as efforts converge from companies like PwC, Siemens, NVIDIA, Nokia, and more. While the tech world may focus on products like the Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest Pro and 3, and metaverse platforms like Decentraland, the true narrative is unfolding within the industry and enterprise sectors.
