Today at Microsoft Build, the leading technology giant announced a new fabric feature that allows the creation of enterprise-ready digital twins. Today marks the debut of the Digital twin builder in Microsoft Fabric, a feature available in preview mode as the company refines the solution.
The digital twin builder provides an avenue for building and managing digital representations of real-world environments, including 3D, highly detailed models and associated information points. Moreover, Microsoft’s new solutions offer a no-code/low-code interface, therefore enabling an accessible route for business creators to deploy digital twins in an enterprise environment or workflow.
Other features of the Digital twin builder include the ability to integrate real-world map data from physical assets, processes, or systems, an accessible design for business decision makers, deep AI inclusion, analytics, what-if scenarios, and AI-powered automation.
Microsoft is responding to businesses’ needs to digitise systems, products, and environments to test outcomes and workflows with the Digital Twin Builder in Microsoft Fabric. The firm designed its product to simplify the complex method of digitising work assets, “enabling organisations to harness the power of their data like never before,” Microsoft remarks.
From HoloLens Discontinuation to RT3D Solution Enablement
Microsoft’s mixed reality division is nearing the end of a challenging period following the loss of its multi-billion-dollar contract for the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) with the U.S. military. After last week’s news regarding IVAS, The Verge reported a statement from Robin Seiler, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Mixed Reality, confirming the company’s strategy regarding HoloLens and its mixed reality ambitions.
Seiler emphasised that Microsoft is “transitioning away from hardware development” but will continue supporting HoloLens 2 hardware and software through 2027, as announced in October.
The loss of the IVAS contract, valued at approximately $22 billion, has led to Palmer Luckey‘s start-up, Anduril, taking over the responsibilities from which Microsoft has stepped away. This shift means that Microsoft will no longer support XR hardware but instead focus on backend support.
Palmer Luckey is well-known as the founder of Oculus, the virtual reality company that Mark Zuckerberg acquired. After Luckey’s departure, Oculus became part of Meta and its Reality Labs division.
However, HoloLens isn’t the only avenue for Microsoft’s extended reality efforts. Through services like Azure Cloud, the company continues to support augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality workflows and computing.
Many large organisations and enterprises rely heavily on Microsoft infrastructure. As a result, the company is well-positioned in the enterprise solutions space, particularly from a backend infrastructure standpoint. The recent unveiling of its digital twin product illustrates that Microsoft is not abandoning XR but is working to create an ecosystem to support it.
