Digital Twins: Initiatives, Technologies, and Use Cases in the Arab World

Digital twins (DTs) are virtual replicas of components, assets, systems, or processes, linked to their real-world counterparts, continuously updating their states and simulating their behavior in real-time, as illustrated in Figure 1. They are adopted for monitoring, predicting, and optimizing the performance of diverse systems, bridging the gap between design, testing and deployment. Through conceptual design, virtual verification, and commissioning, DTs open ample room for data-driven optimization and decision making, enhancing strategic planning and risk mitigation in verticals of paramount importance to the Arab world’s economic development and citizen’s safety and well-being.

Significant efforts are being devoted across Arab R&D institutions to export technology tackling challenges that are not only pertinent to the region, but also of global importance, e.g., energy, sustainability, disaster management, healthcare, and urbanization, among many others. For instance, Khalifa University, UAE, is pioneering research into optical wireless communication using DTs.⁸ Similarly, several institutions across the region like LPRI Lab, Morocco, Beirut Arab University, Lebanon, Alexandria University, Egypt, and University of Bahrain are harnessing the power of DTs in energy and urban infrastructure.^3,7

However, despite these promising advancements, the region also faces several challenges that are slowing down the adoption of DTs. These include, but are not limited to, the pressing need for a skilled workforce with ICT expertise, resistance to change by employees, interoperability with legacy systems, limited multidisciplinary collaborations, disparities in digital infrastructure, and inconsistent policy frameworks.⁹

Technology Enablers for Digital Twins

DTs rely on key technology enablers ranging from high-fidelity models, capturing physical, operational, and behavioral attributes, along with simulation interconnects to integrate heterogeneous components, to powerful computing infrastructure and immersive technologies. It also hinges on the Internet of Things (IoT), for real-time synchronization through the influx of data streams from multi-modal sensors constantly updating the system state, and artificial intelligence (AI) for anomaly detection and predictive analytics and maintenance.

Localized datacenters, with low-latency and scalable resources, are a prerequisite for DTs to handle computationally intensive processes and IoT big data.¹³ The Arab World hosts availability zones provided by public cloud providers, for example, Amazon Web Services (AWS)^a and Google Cloud Platform (GCP)^b as well as state-of-the-art computing facilities at multiple universities.

Digital Twins in Energy

The vibrant energy sector is actively embracing technological innovation, driven by the global push for decarbonization, renewable energy, and the need for enhanced system efficiency and resilience, by enabling real-time, adaptive digital twins for nonlinear and distributed energy systems. At King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), KSA, research initiatives and state-of-the-art facilities are enabling the development of high-fidelity digital twins for energy systems.^10,11 These efforts leverage digital real-time simulation (DRTS) platforms, renewable energy sources, energy storage systems, and electric vehicles (EV) emulation technologies. By integrating real-world feedback, such as solar irradiance, temperature variations, and battery charging/discharging profiles, KAUST researchers create digital replicas that accurately mirror the behavior of such complex systems. These twins also incorporate bidirectional vehicle-to-grid (V2G) functionalities and advanced control mechanisms to ensure comprehensive modeling.

Figure 2 illustrates a conceptual diagram of the advanced digital twin for energy systems at KAUST that integrates cutting-edge hardware and software to enable comprehensive simulations, supporting innovation in energy systems research in the area of stability analysis and ensuring renewable-rich integration. Collaborative efforts with local industry leaders and stakeholders, such as Aramco and ENOWA (the NEOM’s Energy and Water Company in KSA), further amplify the relevance and impact of KAUST’s DT research. Aramco brings extensive expertise in energy infrastructure and operations, working with KAUST to develop DTs that optimize energy supply chains, enhance system resilience, and improve operational efficiency. ENOWA complements these efforts by advancing executable digital twins (xDTs) in sectors such as water management and power systems. These collaborative efforts well position the Arab World in the international DT technology landscape.

As part of broader research efforts in the field, KAUST’s DT framework offers predictive maintenance by simulating energy system operations to proactively identify potential failures, minimizing downtime and reducing operational costs. By modeling interactions between critical components such as distributed energy resources (DERs), energy storage systems, and protection relays, researchers can predict risks and optimize system performance.¹¹ In addition, extreme scenarios, such as natural disasters, equipment failures, and cascading blackouts, pose significant risks to energy systems. These scenarios can be modeled to test adaptive strategies, including islanding, black-start procedures, and load-shedding schemes through risk-free, real-time simulators. Moreover, KAUST employs DTs to simulate and analyze various cyber threats, including denial-of-service (DOS) attacks, false data injection (FDI), and man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.¹⁰

Despite many benefits of renewable energy sources’ integration into modern power grids, the penetration level of such sources introduces challenges related to grid stability and reliability. KAUST’s DTs provide a risk-free environment to study renewable participation under varying conditions, assessing the grid’s stability, flexibility, and resilience.⁴

DTs are expected to play an important role in addressing emerging challenges, from optimizing renewable integration to fortifying cybersecurity and enhancing operational insights. By fostering collaboration among research institutions, industry leaders, and policymakers, the Arab World is poised to play an active role in creating a sustainable, resilient and efficient energy future.

Digital Twins in Disaster Management

In light of the increasing frequency of natural disasters like storms, floods and earthquakes, along with the imminent impact of global warming, DTs are envisioned to play a pivotal role in disaster management, by limiting human intervention and supporting informed decision making. In addition, despite the Arab world’s impressive advances in infrastructure and smart cities, it remains to struggle with informal urbanization practices and settlements.

Qatar University is introducing a complex, dual-layered post-disaster search and rescue (PDSR) system,¹ facilitating search and rescue efforts through a resilient architecture that establishes a sophisticated digital mirror of real-word operations. A centralized disaster relief center (DRC) acts as a focal point between different system components, collecting real-time data, optimizing resource allocation and relaying communications to stakeholders, including law enforcement and first responders. In support of the DRC, airships serve as mobile platforms with their own digital twins, enabling optimized deployment strategies and operational parameters. These airships leverage advanced communication technologies like 5G and LTE to ensure uninterrupted connectivity with the DRC. Furthermore, a two-tiered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network, composed of high-altitude UAVs for wide-area surveillance and optimized signal coverage and low-altitude UAVs for ground level operations (see Figure 3). The system utilizes state-of-the-art distributed multiple input multiple output (dMIMO) communication technology to create a complex mesh network of radio signals. This network, replicated in the digital domain, uses sophisticated algorithms to process channel impulse response (CIR) measurements. This enables accurate detection of human presence through various materials, distinguishing between rubble and human tissue with high precision. Through a robust digital twin framework, the system integrates multi-modal sensor data, machine learning models and real-time 3D mapping. This integration enables non-invasive monitoring of vital signs, distinguishing multiple individuals and precise localization of survivors in disaster zones.

On the same front, a multidisciplinary team from the AUC, Siemens EDA Egypt and a researcher from Behna University, Egypt/Know-Center are working on facilitating search and rescue operations through immersive digital twins (IDTs). IDTs are advanced virtual replicas of physical systems, or environments that leverage immersive technologies such as virtual, augmented and mixed reality to provide a highly interactive and lifelike experience easing human-robot interaction (HRI). Immersing users in visually rich and spatially organized environments using XR technology enables the human operator to recognize patterns and relationships that might otherwise go unnoticed. Additionally, it helps in retaining information by linking it to visual cues and, hence, bridges the gap between human cognition and abstract data. This work involves developing an open-source software development kit (SDK), coined “Khet-Shut,” a pharaonic concept of body-soul unity and harmony,⁵ which provides APIs for building comprehensive digital twins of arbitrary cyber-physical systems utilizing a novel low-latency dockerized private cloud architecture.⁶ The SDK offers interfaces to include human in the loop, through a 360 omni-directional treadmill, to manipulate several robotic platforms using a generic interface, see Figure 4. This facilitates assessing dynamic viewports for remote automated guided vehicles (AGVs) telepresence to identify optimal combinations of visual perspectives and locomotion interfaces.

Digital Twins in Healthcare

Digital twins are playing a critical role in advancing the healthcare sector. With the aim of improving health interventions and clinical outcomes, medical devices are modeled and assessed on virtual patient models, simulating complex physiological interactions and, thus enabling prediction of treatment and drug responses.

Siemens EDA Egypt has contributed to the development of a digital twin for the formal analysis of a depth of anesthesia (DoA) controller.² Controlling and managing DoA in surgical procedures is crucial for ensuring patient safety during pre- and post-surgical procedures. Achieving the optimal balance between sedation, analgesia, and muscle relaxation poses several challenges due to the complexity of individual patient responses and the noise induced by monitoring systems. Therefore, a novel approach for enhancing DoA management has been introduced to provide precise control over anesthetic infusion rates with the aid of a robust feedback controller. The digital twin hosts a virtual patient model, an autonomous DoA propofol controller, a test case manager, and a runtime verification monitor, all integrated through a virtual system interconnect.¹²

In a related vein, DTs are crucial in healthcare robotics as they facilitate the simulation and testing of medical procedures before applying them to real-world scenarios. Qatar University introduced enhanced solutions, in terms of latency and assistive control, for a simulated digital twin robotic arm.¹⁴ It provides a low-latency wireless communication technique for shift-left testing of a locomotion interface, prior to hardware deployment. A physics-based scenario simulator was employed for simulating the robotic arm attached to a flexible endoscope camera and a semi-realistic 3D colon model. This setup was also utilized to assess the AI diagnostic feature, which analyzes colon imagery for potential abnormalities.

Conclusion

The Arab World presents a number of unique challenges and opportunities for DTs pertaining to ICT capacity building, digital infrastructure, societal needs, major development projects, and digital transformation strategies. DTs will also be crucial for climate change resilience, supporting the UN’s sustainable development goals. In this article, we overviewed sample innovations in DT technologies developed in/for the Arab world in diverse areas critical for economic development, including energy, disaster management, and healthcare. We envision that DTs will play a growing role in addressing other pressing challenges in the Arab World, for example, urbanization, education, food and water, smart mobility and industry automation, among others. Strengthening local infrastructure, ICT education, and regulatory frameworks will ensure the Arab world is at the forefront of digital twin innovation, development, and adoption.