Following the news that Germany is set to partially lift COVID-19 restrictions and Donald Trump’s announcement of his intentions to reopen the US economy, Oliver Lockett, analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view on the global governments’ current challenges:
“Digital twins of smart cities will be a critical tool for governments to use while determining their next policy steps for urban areas. With the US and Germany taking steps to restart their economies, digital twins will provide valuable predictive modelling vital in determining the safety and economic implications of policy measures before they are rolled out nationwide.
“Researchers at the University of Virginia’s Biocomplexity Institute have developed a digital twin simulation platform that could help state and local governments better anticipate the contagion’s spread. Technology projects like this helps governments understand the widespread impacts of coronavirus policies based on the analysis of large data sets.
“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, smart city digital twins were already being considered in the context of disaster management. The pandemic has acted as a catalyst to inputting this type of data sets into crisis models, highlighting the importance of extending digital twin technologies and models.”
