AI-driven digital twins to unlock Asia’s operational excellence

Gartner defines a digital twin as a digital representation of a real-world entity or system. Its implementation is an encapsulated software object or model that mirrors a unique physical object, process, organisation, person or other abstraction.

As Asia experiences rapid infrastructure growth and industrial transformation, digital twin technology is emerging as a pivotal enabler of digitalisation across the region. With markets expanding at double-digit rates and governments championing smart city and Industry 4.0 initiatives, the digital twin landscape in Asia is evolving dynamically in 2025.

Market growth and drivers

Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing digital twin market worldwide, projected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 37-39% from 2025 to 2034, reaching market values between US$117 billion and US$167 billion by 2033-2034. This surge is driven by rapid industrialisation, the adoption of smart manufacturing, and large-scale infrastructure projects in countries such as China, India, Japan, and Southeast Asia.

Key drivers include:

• Smart cities and infrastructure: Governments in China, India, Japan, and Gulf countries are investing heavily in smart city initiatives, utilising digital twins to optimise urban planning, disaster preparedness, and resource management.
• Industry 4.0 and beyond: The manufacturing sectors, particularly automotive and electronics in Japan and China, are leveraging digital twins for predictive maintenance, quality control, and lifecycle management, thereby boosting productivity by up to 25%.
• Technological advances: Integration of IoT, AI, cloud computing, and large language models (LLMs) enables real-time data synthesis and autonomous updating of digital twins.
• Government support: Subsidies and regulatory frameworks promoting AI, IoT, and digital infrastructure accelerate adoption, as seen in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan and India’s recent agreements to enhance AI-driven infrastructure planning.

Digital twins as strategic catalysts

Kaushik Chakraborty, SVP and regional executive for APAC at Bentley Systems, emphasises the transformative role of digital twins in Asia’s digitalisation journey, explaining that digital twins are acting as strategic catalysts in Asia’s digitalisation journey—particularly where infrastructure is scaling rapidly.

“Digital twins unify data from physical assets and digital systems into actionable intelligence, enabling faster investment decisions, operational agility, and resilience. For many Asian infrastructure engineering firms, it’s not about incremental change; it’s about reimagining how complex systems are planned, built, operated, and maintained.” Kaushik Chakraborty

This highlights how digital twins surpass mere digital replicas, becoming integral to informed decision-making and operational excellence in capital-intensive sectors.

Overcoming organisational barriers to adoption

Despite technological readiness, Chakraborty acknowledges that organisational challenges remain the primary barriers, with organisational rather than technological as being the primary barrier. He notes that siloed ownership of data, legacy operating models, and lack of clarity on value capture inhibit progress.

“Additionally, cultural inertia and underinvestment in change leadership often delay enterprise-wide adoption. The technology is ready; however, the real challenge lies in aligning leadership, incentives, and execution,” he continued.

Addressing these requires strong leadership alignment, change management, and breaking down data silos to unlock the full potential of digital twins.

AI-enhanced digital twins in critical sectors

Bentley’s Chakraborty highlights sectors where AI-enhanced digital twins deliver the highest returns, explaining that capital-intensive and risk-sensitive environments, such as energy systems, industrial production lines, and transportation infrastructure, stand to gain the most.

He was quick to point out that these are areas where downtime is costly, and foresight is critical: “AI-enhanced digital twins provide a step-change in operational predictability and asset lifecycle performance, delivering measurable returns in efficiency, uptime, and sustainability.”

This aligns with Asia’s infrastructure focus, where minimising disruptions and optimising asset performance are paramount.

Integrating fragmented data for trustworthy digital twins

A significant technical challenge is integrating diverse operational technology (OT), information technology (IT), engineering, and external data streams. Chakraborty advises:

“It starts with leadership alignment on a unified data strategy. From there, success hinges on adopting open, standards-based platforms that support interoperability across domains to help unlock siloed data to deliver insights and value-based returns.”

Open platforms and standards-based interoperability are crucial for creating reliable, real-time digital twins that accurately reflect complex physical systems.

Essential AI/ML/LLM capabilities and model governance

Artificial intelligence capabilities, such as predictive analytics, generative simulation, anomaly detection, and natural language interaction, are now foundational. Chakraborty posits that the strategic capabilities of AI/ML/LLM are enabling predictive analytics, generative simulation, anomaly detection, and natural-language interaction, which make them no longer optional but foundational to value creation.

“Build vs. buy vs. partner depends on the maturity of the organisation and the criticality of the use case. To ensure accuracy and trust, we embed continuous feedback loops, model retraining, and transparent governance, particularly as explainability becomes a compliance expectation in regulated industries.” Kaushik Chakraborty

This reflects the growing importance of explainable AI and continuous model validation in regulated Asian markets.

Measuring success: Business impact and KPIs

Market volatility has become the norm of 2025. To this end, business leaders are demanding greater transparency and accountability, particularly with investments. Ask for his opinion on where the focus should be when it comes to measuring the success of digital twin strategies, Chakraborty was adamant that the focus is on tangible business outcomes:

“Success can be measured by business impact. For example, accelerated decision-making, measurable cost avoidance, reduced downtime, and progress toward sustainability/resiliency targets (e.g., emissions reductions) as well as reaching organisational KPIs, both operationally based (e.g., asset availability, risk reduction, and time-to-insight) as well as strategically based (e.g., integration depth across function),” he explained.

This holistic approach ensures digital twins contribute directly to organisational goals.

Outlook: Autonomous AI, regulation, and open platforms

Looking ahead, Chakraborty identifies three key forces shaping digital twins’ future:

“Three forces will help shape the next era: first, the rise of autonomous, real-time AI capabilities; second, regulatory momentum around digital accountability and sustainability disclosures; and third, the shift toward open platforms that eliminate vendor lock-in. Together, these will have an impact on how digital twins become business critical.”

These trends will further embed digital twins as essential infrastructure for sustainable and accountable business operations in Asia.

In 2025, Asia stands at the forefront of digital twin adoption, driven by rapid infrastructure growth, smart manufacturing, and government initiatives. As Chakraborty acknowledged, technology is mature, so the focus needs to be on overcoming organisational and cultural barriers.

The integration of AI, open data platforms, and regulatory frameworks will define the next phase of digital twin evolution, making them indispensable for operational excellence and sustainability in Asia’s dynamic markets.