Today the US National Academies released a report "Foundational Research Gaps and Future Directions for Digital Twins" which reports on their findings on the state of the art in digital twins technologies and fundamental research gaps that these approaches need to address. This builds on a series of symposia that the Academies have sponsored over the past year exploring applications of digital twins in a variety of different specific domains (I shared material on this earlier on CNI-announce).

The report is available as a free PDF download at

Foundational Research Gaps and Future Directions for Digital Twins

Across multiple domains of science, engineering, and medicine, excitement is growing about the potential of digital twins to transform scientific research, industrial practices, and many aspects of daily life. A digital twin couples computational models with a physical counterpart to create a system that is dynamically updated through bidirectional data flows as conditions change. Going beyond traditional simulation and modeling, digital twins could enable improved medical decision-making at the...

Video of the report release webinar can be found at

Foundational Research Gaps and Future Directions for Digital Twins

Across multiple domains of science, engineering, and medicine, excitement is growing about the potential of digital twins to transform scientific research, industrial practices, and many aspects of daily life. A digital twin couples computational models with a physical counterpart to create a system that is dynamically updated through bidirectional data flows as conditions change. Going beyond traditional simulation and modeling, digital twins could enable improved medical decision-making at the...

Additional background on the project

Foundational Research Gaps and Future Directions for Digital Twins

Digital twins promise to revolutionize decision-making across domains, from helping doctors develop personalized treatment plans to optimizing city-wide transportation systems. But there are still challenges to overcome before the full potential of these technologies can be realized. This project explores future directions for digital twin technologies—and how to support this emerging field. Read our recent report, register for upcoming events, and download new resources below. View the related ...

Clifford Lynch Director, CNI