Harnessing the opportunities of current key technologies

Metaverse Harnessing the opportunities of current key technologies

2025-01-30 A guest contribution by Dale Tutt | Translated by AI 4 min Reading Time

The industrial metaverse offers innovative approaches to improving product development through immersive visualizations and accelerated iterations. This digital transformation combines key technologies such as digital twins and AI to promote agile and adaptable development processes.

The metaverse as a consumer product is known—it is conceived as a virtual place where users can play, network, trade, and even own virtual property. However, the industrial metaverse only resembles these offerings in name.(Image: Siemens) — The metaverse as a consumer product is known—it is conceived as a virtual place where users can play, network, trade, and even own virtual property. However, the industrial metaverse only resembles these offerings in name.
(Image: Siemens)

Dale Tutt, Vice President of Industry Strategy, Siemens Digital Industries Software

In all industries, companies are facing increasing pressure, uncertainties, and opportunities. The proliferation of smart and connected products has continued to increase in many sectors as companies strive to enhance functionality and user experience through software and electronics. Interest in sustainable solutions has also risen. The challenges related to supply chain management, workforce dynamics, and sustainable innovation create uncertainty on the one hand but also opportunities for companies to gain a competitive advantage through creative solutions. This pressure, these challenges, and the resulting opportunities are forcing companies to rethink both their way of working and their market offerings.

Driving the digital journey forward

To continue to succeed, it is crucial for companies to become more resilient, agile, and adaptable to dynamic conditions. The foundation for this is a digital transformation strategy that leverages key technologies, each representing a facet of this digital transformation. These include

a comprehensive digital twin,
software and systems engineering,
the convergence of information and operational technology (IT/OT),
artificial intelligence (AI) and
last but not least, the industrial metaverse.

Mastering and combining these technologies will enable companies to progress on their digital journey, achieve a higher maturity level of digital transformation, and utilize powerful capabilities such as AI-powered generative design and closed-loop optimization.

Design concepts are easier to understand in the metaverse

In this article, we will take a closer look at the industrial metaverse and explore how it could prove to be the most transformative method for managing businesses. The industrial metaverse also offers the potential to reshape the way products are designed, manufactured, and maintained. It combines the physical foundation of the comprehensive digital twin with the impressive visualizations of the metaverse to create a shared and immersive environment. In this environment, learning becomes faster and more intuitive, and design concepts are easier to understand. New ideas can be quickly and thoroughly explored to drive innovations for the future.

Why the industrial metaverse is more than CAD in VR

Industrial customers believe in the potential of industrial metaverses for realistic real-time visualization of systems in immersive environments. Immersive industrial metaverses are a crucial factor in the advancement of product development methods. They also change the manufacturing and maintenance of these products and hopefully make the work of people in companies easier.

The metaverse as a consumer product is certainly known—it is conceived as a virtual place where users can play, network, trade, and even own virtual property. The industrial metaverse only resembles these offerings in name.

The industrial metaverse is a physics-based virtual environment.
In this environment, the evaluation, analysis, and prediction of behavior based on deterministic models of the product, process, production facility, and more are possible.
This environment is accessible via various devices, including augmented and virtual reality.
It also aggregates and normalizes data from multiple sources to enable a holistic assessment of a system or product in a single environment.

Save time, resources and money

The result is a virtual environment based on physical reality that enables rapid and intuitive conceptualization, design, and detailed construction of complex products and systems. Instead of assessing system performance solely through diagrams, tables, or raw data, designs can be visualized and modified in three dimensions, allowing users to interact with the digital twin. This can help reveal issues that in the past were often only discovered when prototypes were built and tested in the real world—leading to scheduling delays, higher costs, and increased material consumption. All problems identified in the industrial metaverse can be solved through quick design iteration in the virtual world, saving time, resources, and money.

All issues identified in the industrial metaverse can be resolved through rapid design iteration in the virtual world, saving time, resources, and money.

Metaverse aggregates data from various sources

Moreover, the industrial metaverse is not a standalone environment separate from a company's day-to-day operations. The industrial metaverse is capable of integrating data from various sources, both real and digital, into a single user experience. In this way, all information is consolidated into a single view, providing greater transparency and a deeper understanding of the dynamics of a system design, production process, supply chain, or a variety of other topics. Thus, the industrial metaverse is more than just a space for design. It also enables companies to actively monitor, analyze, and manage real assets in a closed loop, allowing them to make more informed technical and business decisions.

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Date: 08.12.2025

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The metaverse—more than the digital twin

To realize its full potential, the industrial metaverse must be more than a visualized version of the digital twin. In manufacturing, every movement and action must be captured precisely, which requires realistic physical behavior. Better access to cloud computing supports the industrial metaverse with the necessary computing power to underpin immersive visualizations with physical simulations, significantly increasing its value in the development and design process.

By applying real-world physics and robust operational data to the industrial metaverse, we have the potential to create more than just a gamification experience.

Evaluate new ideas quickly and thoroughly

By applying real physics and robust operational data to the industrial metaverse, we have the potential to create more than just a gamification experience. The result can be a shared and immersive environment where learning is faster and more intuitive, design concepts are more easily understood, and new ideas can be quickly and thoroughly explored to drive innovations for the future.

Such a powerful environment is the result of current technology trends taking shape across industries today. Companies embarking on the path of digital transformation will be able to overcome these challenges. They gain an edge by leveraging the possibilities of the comprehensive digital twin, software and systems engineering, integrated IT and OT systems, artificial intelligence, and ultimately industrial metaverses.