With a digital twin, we don’t just envision the future; we build it, test it, and perfect it, long before it ever touches the real world.
— Jim Carroll
The opportunity
Provide more accurate and timely alerts for events like earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and wildfires, allowing for better preparedness, evacuation, and response to save lives and reduce damage.
From “Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #4 : Digital Twinning “With a digital twin, we don’t just envision the future; we build it, test it, and perfect it, long before it ever touches the real world.”” (June 2025)
The foundation of a digital twin lies in comprehensive data collection. This can often involve capturing hundreds or even thousands of high-resolution images or capturing large quantities of information from other sensor inputs, which all depend on the size and complexity of the asset being inspected. Accurate and high-quality data is essential, and drones have emerged as a superior tool for this task. Their ability to reach difficult or hazardous areas safely and efficiently makes them invaluable in creating reliable digital twins.
Beyond their 3D visualization capabilities, digital twins integrate multiple data layers, including many different sensor inputs and data from a wide variety of repositories to provide a comprehensive understanding of an asset. By providing accurate and current information, digital twins enhance decision-making, reduce uncertainties and minimize the downtime that can be associated with conventional inspection methods, as those conventional methods may require an entire site shut-down to facilitate an inspection.
The integration of drones with digital twin technology is reshaping how industries approach asset management and visualization. By offering comprehensive, dynamic models of physical systems, these models enhance decision-making, reduce risks and improve collaboration. Whether for construction planning, historical preservation, or operational efficiency, the ability to capture high-quality data through the use of advanced drone capabilities is allowing construction organizations to fully harness the potential of digital twins to revolutionize their workflows and project outcomes.
From “AI Megatrends - AI In Energy : Connected, Intelligent Energy and Energy SaaS” (June 2023)
and a key component is that any excess energy within this grid will be fed back out into the large utility grid to provide it with additional power, transitioning it from a one-way to a two-way systems
The smart grid chip is powered by the NVIDIA Jetson platform of accelerated computing to collect and analyze large amounts of real-time granular data at the edge of the grid. Altogether, it’s expected to seamlessly add more clean energy, reduce power outages, enable quicker storm recovery and lower the cost of grid operations — while allowing PGE and partners to develop custom solutions.
In the city, the grid is subject to greater load stress, due to the increase in the demand for electricity, concentrated in particular in the hottest hours of the day, due to the greater use of air conditioning systems. During the day, in fact, the air temperature often exceeds 40 °C and even during the night hours it remains above the historical average. “Our studies have shown that most of the failures occurred at the level of the cable joints and that, therefore, these elements suffer most from heat wave problems. This result provides a useful element to operators and manufacturers of electronic components, which will thus be able to conduct more targeted analyzes to obtain more resilient networks”, adds Valenti.
From “Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #29 The Arrival of the Humanoid Robot - “A decade of progress in a year; the humanoid robot era is here, and it’s accelerating with astonishing speed and breathtaking developments.”” (August 2025)
Why is that? Early robots were limited to executing pre-programmed, scripted routines - each step, each arm movement was tightly programmed, limiting what was possible. But now, the current generation of humanoids represents a paradigm shift, powered by the same generative AI technologies that have revolutionized natural language and image generation. Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models are giving humanoids a rudimentary form of understanding and reasoning. Instead of being programmed with explicit instructions, a robot can now be given a high-level command in natural language, such as ” put the coffee cup on the counter .”
Battery Technology : Significant improvements with systems like Figure’s F03 battery providing five-hour peak performance. Advanced lithium-ion systems now reach energy densities of 350-500 Wh/kg, enabling practical all-day operation. They can last a long time! A four-hour round of golf!
While pilot programs in semi-structured settings like elder care facilities will emerge, widespread consumer adoption is not anticipated within the decade. The primary focus for the next decade will be the transformation of the global workforce and industrial landscape.
Read the full pieces on jimcarroll.com:
Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #4 : Digital Twinning “With a digital twin, we don’t just envision the future; we build it, test it, and perfect it, long before it ever touches the real world.”
AI Megatrends - AI In Energy : Connected, Intelligent Energy and Energy SaaS
Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #29 The Arrival of the Humanoid Robot - “A decade of progress in a year; the humanoid robot era is here, and it’s accelerating with astonishing speed and breathtaking developments.”