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BDFI partnering with Fujitsu to complete pioneering digital twin

Artist's impression of Reality Emulator

Press release issued: 28 November 2023

Bristol Digital Futures Institute has signed a contract with Fujitsu to provide the powerful IT and network infrastructure and systems for its pioneering Reality Emulator, an advanced digital twin facility.

BDFI is thrilled to have signed the final contract to build an ambitious new facility, with the global digital services company Fujitsu.

The BDFI Reality Emulator is a technologically advanced, sector-agnostic digital twin. 

Fujitsu, one of the world’s leading information and communications technology companies, will be installing the core infrastructure to power the Reality Emulator.

The infrastructure provided will enable us to host and experiment with a broad range of digital twin models. Examples of these include models of an entire city, a factory, a telecoms network, a manufacturing floor, a health system, a train station, an energy grid or even a pandemic.

The Reality Emulator will store and process large amounts of data including quantitative, qualitative, real-time and historic data from many different sources. It will analyse, scale and use these data sets to train artificial intelligence models to generate multiple potential future scenarios. These scenarios can then be visualised and experienced by multiple stakeholders interacting in real-time within connected immersive, multisensory environments.

The Reality Emulator will help users to develop new technologies, optimise designs or processes, improve services, make informed decisions, develop new standards or polices, mitigate unforeseen consequences, build in contingencies and more.

As the selected partner, Fujitsu will be responsible for consultancy, design, delivery, installation and integration of the Reality Emulator. It will provide a solution which integrates data, software, high performance networking, including private 5G, monitoring, and management into a single operating facility.

Professor Dimitra Simeonidou, Co-Director of Bristol Digital Futures Institute, said: “We are delighted to partner with Fujitsu to deliver the infrastructure for our Reality Emulator. This is an important step in completing our pioneering sector-agnostic digital twinning facility. The Reality Emulator will offer multi-user, multipurpose, interactive immersive capabilities that will allow our ecosystem partners to create and experience future digital transformation scenarios and drive advanced solutions to the market. We look forward to working with Fujitsu to see the Reality Emulator come to life.”

Further information

You can read more about the Reality Emulator on the BDFI website.

The Reality Emulator is forecast to be operational in Q3 of 2024 and BDFI welcomes interested parties from across sectors and disciplines to take part in the pilot phase. To discuss the opportunity please contact bdfi-enquiries@bristol.ac.uk

About BDFI

The Bristol Digital Futures Institute is a £100m interdisciplinary institute established in 2019 to transform the way we create new digital technologies, for more sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous futures. With 20 academic staff, 27 partners and over 100 affiliated researchers, the Institute is developing new sociotechnical methodologies, pioneering new technical facilities and buildings, and an ecosystem which does digital innovation differently.

BDFI has received £102m in funding and support from Research England, our civic, business, charity and philanthropic partners. This includes a £29m award from Research England's UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF) and £2.5m from the UKRPIF: Net Zero funding scheme.

For any media enquiries please contact bdfi-comms@bristol.ac.uk

Twitter: @DigiFutures

 

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