Digital Twins: When Critical Infrastructure Gets an Operating System

In 2026, digital twins are evolving beyond 3D replicas to become operational layers for critical infrastructure, answering questions like what is happening, what will happen, and what decision to take now. Companies like Orange demonstrated at VivaTech with Network Digital Twins and Live Intelligence, enabling network supervision in natural language and simulation of failures before they occur. Siemens Energy's SIEAERO system combines sensors, cameras, AI, and digital twins to inspect power lines, generating up to 300 GB of data per kilometer and simulating extreme events. The energy sector sees digital twins as a way to increase capacity, with SSE in the UK using AI to boost transmission capacity by 15% on some lines. In India, the port of V.O. Chidambaranar has launched a digital twin initiative to optimize operations, aiming to reduce ship turnaround time by 25%. Oil India deployed industrial monitoring on 77 wells with 482 devices to establish a data foundation for digital twins. Cities like Chennai are planning digital twins for flood and congestion management. The European Union's Destination Earth and France's JUNN project (funded with 25 million euros) are building national and European platforms for territorial digital twins. The trend underscores the need for edge AI to handle local decisions with low latency, as not all data can be sent to the cloud.