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Naver begins Saudi digital twin project for smart cities

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Naver’s virtual simulations of cities based on digital twin platforms

South Korean internet giant Naver Corp. and the Saudi Arabian government have started a five-year project to build digital twin platforms for Riyadh and other four major cities in the Middle East country.

Naver said on Tuesday that it launched a ceremony with Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Municipal, Rural Affairs and Housing (MOMRAH) and National Housing Company (NHC) on July 21 to celebrate kicking off the digital twin platform project.

A digital twin is a virtual representation of a real-world physical product or system for practical purposes such as simulation, integration, testing and maintenance. The technology is used to predict failures or opportunities or receive real-time data in various industries including aerospace, automotive, construction, energy and infrastructure.  

The project follows Naver’s $100 million deal signed last October to build the platforms in the Saudi capital, Medina, Jeddah, Dammam and Mecca based on its cloud technology. Since then, the Korean online portal giant has set up plans for the project through on-site inspections, analyses and negotiations.

Naver will begin creating digital twin platforms through mapping and three-dimensional (3D) modeling of the five Saudi cities.

The internet giant will develop the project with Korea’s state-backed companies the Korea Water Resources Corp. (K-water) and Korea Land and Geospatial Informatix Corp. (LX) for core services such as planning of smart city infrastructure and online simulation of natural disasters.

Naver will identify great examples of the use of digital twin platforms during the project, as well as explore opportunities for value-added businesses related to the technology, said a Naver official.

Naver owns solutions that create virtual cities by using aerial photography and artificial intelligence. Based on digital twin platforms, virtual reality has high accuracy with an error margin of around 10 centimeters.

The twin platform business can expand with the company’s original technology to replicate reality in the virtual space and the digital cloud that can process the data with stability.

By Ji-Eun Jeong

jeong@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.

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