This week, Bentley Systems, a leading provider of infrastructure engineering software, acquired Cesium’s 3D geospatial application creation platform in a move that consolidates each group’s platforms and users to provide open framework digital infrastructure solutions.
According to Julien Moutte, Chief Technology Officer at Bentley Systems, who wrote a blog post on the acquisition, ” tens of thousands of developers use Cesium, and each month, 1 million active devices access Cesium ion, a SaaS platform for 3D geospatial data,” showcasing a thriving spatial data platform.
The acquisition comes as Bentley Systems acknowledges a transition in the infrastructure industry, seeing leading firms become more data-centric. Therefore, digital twins are becoming critical technology solutions that many professional sectors leverage to better collaborate on data-heavy workflows.
Digital twins allow businesses to leverage a high-quality 3D render of a real-world asset – in infrastructure that could be a road or a bridge – that also includes deep data sets related to that object.
The Cesium acquisition follows Bentlely Systems’ step towards developing a framework for rich spatial data assets, such as its first-party digital twin solution iTwin.
Bentley Systems can now leverage additional tools and standards from the Cesium portfolio, including frameworks such as gITF and 3D Tiles, which offer professional applications for storing and streaming spatial data.
Moutte also added:
Cesium’s success exemplifies the value of having an open approach. Bringing Cesium into Bentley is more than combining platforms and enhancing capabilities for developers and infrastructure professionals.
Moreover, Bentley Systems is taking internal steps towards an open cloud framework to give users greater control over their spatial data and bespoke application development. To support this move, Bentley System also debuted an open-source databasing solution.
Moutte remarked that Bentley System’s open-source vision looks to “double down” on adopting open standards for spatial data in infrastructure sectors.
Reasons for Enterprises to Invest in Digital Twins
The global digital twin market is growing at a CAGR of 41% and is projected to reach a value of $240.3 billion by 2035. This remarkable growth is attributed to new use cases for digital twins in various enterprise settings.
Digital twins offer numerous benefits, such as helping companies track and improve employee performance, optimise resource allocation, and facilitate the transition to remote and hybrid work setups. The technology presents countless opportunities for companies across different sectors, including industrial and enterprise environments. By leveraging digital twins, companies can increase productivity, enhance employee and customer satisfaction, cut costs, and reduce environmental impact.
Notably, the leading computing firm NVIDIA has significantly invested in digital twin and simulation technology for enterprises. At GTC earlier this year, CEO Jensen Huang said, “the future of heavy industries starts as a digital twin,” he also explained that NVIDIA’s digital twin and AI platforms unite to initiate the next generation of industrial workflows, such as helping robots navigate and understand factory environments via virtual simulations.
The value of digital twins appears to be increasing, with hardware and software providers looking at ways to make the technology more accessible so more businesses can leverage the merging technology.
