In the Age of Experience, digital heritage is becoming a strategic competitive advantage for cities. There is tremendous potential in India to build an effective ecosystem to enable its expanding urban areas to become smart and sustainable by using digital technology
By Bernard Charles, Vice Chairman & CEO, Dassault Systèmes
Cities are the most complex objects that man created. They can’t be treated simply as products. This is why, in the world of tomorrow, no city will be designed or managed without the help of virtual worlds.
We are living in incredibly exciting times in terms of transformation. Two main factors will define the future of our society and our cities. The first lies in the fact that we are shifting from a “product” economy to an “experience” economy, where a product’s real value comes from how we use. We can already see this happening in the automotive industry that no longer just make cars but imagine new ways of using transport, working hand in hand with cities, retailers and citizens. 3D technology plays a transformational role in this new era. At Dassault Systèmes that’s what we call “3DEXPERIENCE”. The second perspective is that we must invent a world based on harmonizing products, nature and life.
Cities throughout the world are not only places of human interaction and trade. Each of the world’s major cities has its own “feel” (being from Chennai isn’t the same as being from Bombay, San Francisco or New York); cities are also places of cultural and scientific development. A city represents a whole life experience: there are materials flows — transport, energy, waste and so on — and there’s a balance between resources and the many and varied natural spaces, between people’s life scenarios, between products, nature and life. Achieving this kind of harmony is the only way to reconcile economic growth with sustainable development.
The challenge is considerable, especially when we think that two-thirds of humanity will live in cities by 2050. By 2025, India will have about 70 cities with a population of more than one million each, according to recent estimates. The output of Indian cities will come to resemble that of cities in middle-income nations. In other words, most of what we do and what we imagine throughout the world will be concentrated in these urban environments. This is where our future will be played out.
And this will certainly involve virtual universes and collaborative platforms. The real virtue of digital technology lies not so much in the possibilities it brings for optimizing production as in the scope it offers for inventing radically new business territories and ways of living. Advanced innovation and collaboration platforms bring together great minds, ideas, solutions and information. For more than 30 years, we have been pushing the boundaries of how complexity is managed with digital models and simulation, from aircraft and production systems to the human heart.
Today, we’re applying this same know-how to the challenge of our cities. Major shifts like the emergence of “smart products” (which are creating a new balance between hardware, electronic and software dimensions) and 3D printing will also have a huge impact on the world economy and society: they will converge in cities of the future that will boast and connect intelligent systems.
This is the time when dreams like Smart Cities, initiated by the Indian government, would come to fruition to offer a solution combining sound infrastructure and an improved quality of life. Singapore and Dassault Systèmes have achieved a world first with the creation of the Singapore city-state’s virtual universe, “Virtual Singapore”, supporting its ambition of becoming a smart nation. It will enable Singapore to meet the key challenges ahead and in turn determine the quality of life of its inhabitants and the country’s attractiveness and leadership on the world stage. It encompasses population density, transport networks, energy supply and use, population ageing and all the related health issues.
This breakthrough is set to revolutionize all aspects of the way cities are developed and managed, including urban services, infrastructure, security and natural disaster mitigation. Dynamic digital models of cities (based on a huge set of geometric, topological, demographic, climatic and other data) make it possible to simulate scenarios and create experiences in order to find sustainable solutions to all these challenges. Fundamentally, it’s also a collaborative platform where citizens, companies, researchers and government can interact. In other words, it’s a real social experience that fosters dialogue and in turn contributes to citizenship.
For 30 years, virtual worlds have transformed the way products are designed, produced, and supported. They have ushered in new ways of seeing, sharing and making. With our clients, industry leaders innovation, we have expanded the scope of the possible. With Boeing, we created the world’s first all-digital designed aircraft, the Boeing 777; with Toyota we integrated design and production into the product life cycle management. All this was nothing short of a revolution in the way people worked, in manufacturing and in business at large. Today with major city projects like Virtual Singapore, we’re seeing digital solutions taking shape on an even grander scale. And we’re seeing the power of collaborative platforms on projects of unparalleled complexity and for radically new applications.
In the Age of Experience, digital heritage is becoming a strategic competitive advantage for cities. There is tremendous potential in India to build an effective ecosystem to enable its expanding urban areas to become smart and sustainable by using digital technology. This in turn will create employment opportunities and contribute to economic growth through innovation creating a window of opportunities for its citizens. How smartly we build, manage and operate our cities will be the single biggest determinant of the future of our people.
