At a time when three out of the four engines of economic growth - consumption, exports and private investment - are not firing, India is witnessing digital transformation as almost all businesses and industries are going online. To cater to the needs of the only window for growth today - public expenditure on building infrastructure - France-based Dassault Systemes, leader in collaborative 3D virtual environments has a pioneering model in digital twins.

Sylvain Laurent, Executive Vice President and Chairman, Infrastructure & Cities, Dassault Systemes says, "We pioneered this through our virtual twin model based on experience with Singapore, Jaipur and Bangalore. First, we create innovation centres across India to demonstrate to small and medium companies what digital transformation means to their business. Second, we implement a different strategy for different companies and cater to their needs." The aim behind digital twins is to create a "virtual twin" of the city. That is useful for government departments to plan and monitor better, while reducing costs.

Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Jaipur have adopted Dassault's 3DEXPERIENCE platform - that provides software solutions that help differentiate consumer experiences - to ensure that they could optimise planning. "They didn't adopt the 3DEXPERIENCE technology by accident. These places want to use the model as a single source of truth. They want to help key people, decision makers to visualise their decision. That's important and they want to optimise services and infrastructure to provide residents with a better citizen experience," says Laurent.

Praveen Mysore, Director, Infrastructure, India Dassault Systemes adds, "The same platform can be used for pandemic preparedness too. This is something that we are discussing with government agencies also. Because the value here is when we have the digital asset for the city, planning containment becomes very easy. When you plan for containment zones you need to have the planning done for access to essential services. It could be medical service or groceries."

Laurent says construction of tomorrow could be with modular architecture. Prefabrication of modules will bring in accurate, robust and safe construction capacity in future. In the current global fight against COVID-19, Dassault in collaboration with Aden group has launched modular smart hospital, AKILA Care. These hospitals can be commissioned, shipped, constructed and operational within 100 days. The first step is to create innovation centres across India to demonstrate its capability to SMEs.

Considering that infrastructure roughly accounts for 48 per cent of global GDP worldwide, followed by 35 per cent for manufacturing; infrastructure is one key segment that has not really been impacted by COVID-19.

But to do it, Dassault has to accelerate communication inside India and to make sure that people don't forget that they have a challenge. One of these relates to help companies understand this digital transformation. The other is that every customer is looking for resources to accelerate the transformation.