给Dieter Ernst回信中谈数字孪生体联盟（英文）

最近跟国际技术和标准领域的经济学家Dieter Ernst交流数字孪生体和开源等主题，他撰写了不少引人注目的文章和报告，其中对开源芯片（例如RISC-V）持有很独到的观点。

感谢原中国标准化研究院副总工王平老师的介绍，让本人跟Dieter Ernst有对话的可能。

在给Dieter Ernst回信中，本人回顾了建立工业4.0研究院的初衷，深入谈及了数字孪生体联盟的核心价值观和三项关键任务，并展望了数字孪生体联盟2021年推进“D加速器”的考虑。

在LinkedIn上发布了英文版的介绍，标题为：

Digital Twin Consortium and its core value system

The article is the content I sent to Dieter Ernst. Thanks to Wang Ping's introduction.

China Academy of Industrie 4.0(CAIF) is an independent institute with the mission to study the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We have the core value system of INCLUSIVE and OPEN SOURCE, which leads to the Digital Twin Consortium(DTC) launched by CAIF on Oct. 16, 2019.

We believe that open-source-based standardization would be the mainstream in the digital age, as digitalization becomes ubiquitous and digital twin is widely used. Then DTC is trying to synchronize standardization and open source projects.

Diter Ernst is a respectful expert on technology and innovation, and he wrote some papers on open-source standardization, which is my interest recently. With the help from Wang Ping, I have an opportunity to converse with Dieter Ernst on the issue of technology innovation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

I tried to record the conversation, in order to find more people having interest to join in the conversation.

附邮件全文（英文）：

Dear Dieter,

I’m honored to introduce China Academy of Industrie 4.0(CAIF), Digital Twin Consortium(DTC) and Open Industrial Internet Platform(openii.cn) to you.

In 2013, we set up China Academy of Industrie 4.0, in order to study the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As Germany introduced Industrie 4.0, focusing on manufacturing, we thought it was a good idea, and then used it as our benchmarking. More than Industrie 4.0, we considered CAIF's future to be RAND&DARPA,which means we need do economic and strategic research, at the same time, we need do some technical R&D.

From 2015, CAIF began to research on digital twin and industrial internet, having core value of INCLUSIVE and OPEN SOURCE. Cooperation and interoperability need inclusiveness, and open source can accelerate the cooperation.

Regarding to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, CAIF thought that General-Purpose Technologies(GPT) are very important and could be the driver of new economy or digital economy. The next-generation GPT might be digital twin, AI, IoT, 5G/6G, etc. If China wants to compete in the technological innovation, it should not stay in the traditional track, following the leading countries’ rules.The disruptive technology track could be an option. CAIF wants to be involved in the discovery of disruptive innovation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

In 2016, CAIF developed openii.cn, which is similar to GitHub. At the same time, we tried to study open source IEC 61131-3, openAAS, CAE-related open source projects, etc. Based on these projects, we continued to develop IOT 3000, according to the requirements of Chinese market.

CAIF set up Digital Twin Consortium on October 16th, 2019. It’s the first digital twin industry alliance, and the similar one in U.S. came out in the next year(May 18th, 2020). We injected the core value system into DTC, emphasizing discovery of a new disruptive technology track through open source.

DTC has three key tasks:

1. At the beginning, DTC had a standards group, which has two functions- one is to introduce the digital twin standards as soon as possible, the other is to develop open source digital twin projects.

Standardization is very important, and it’s a good opportunity, as the international standards bodies(such as ISO/IEC/ITU) cannot cooperated on new fields easily. I remembered your Brookings Dialogue suggestions had the same conclusion. DTC emphasizes group standards and open source implementation. Assumed that digitalization could be ubiquitous in the physical world, the network effect can play a key role in the future. The leading organization can spend some money on the development of implementation of some functions, and then share the source code to the public.Both sides can benefit from open source. The developer can lead in the standardization, and users can get source code almost without cost. Two-Sided Economics can tell the truth of open source existence.

2. Based on the key industries’ needs, DTC developed Digital Twin Innovation Center(DTIC), in order to incubate some testbeds, which we expected to become the seeds of startups.

Talents are very important for a new technology development. DTC are trying to help young people study the new knowledge of digital twin technologies and operation, through the Digital Twin University operated by the company owned by CAIF. I wrote “Digital Twin: GPT in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, which is published in China. Many young people think it’s helpful when they want to learn digital twin.

3. DARPA incubated autonomous driving by Grand Challenges, and the current autonomous driving industry benefits from it. DTC thought it was a good practice, then began Digital Twin Challenge from 2019. Recently the 2nd Digital Twin Challenge prizes were handed to some teams. We required the teams should develop some digital twin applications based on real clients’ needs. CAIF got these real clients’ projects, and persuaded them to accept the open source and Digital Twin Challenge.

In 2021, DTC introduced D Accelerator(Disruptive Accelerator), and help the innovative teams get funding from VC.

CAIF has some key ideas:(1) It’s time for the shift of the Third Industrial Revolution and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. GPTs are the key drivers for economic development, and we need focus on digital twin, 5G/6G, and so on.(2) Digital twin is the concept of engineering between physical world and digital space, and it’s a fundamental technology of digitalization. Open source is fit for digitalization in an economic perspective.(3) Standardization without open source is not an attractive choice for industrial players at the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

In one word, I thought “digital twin(new technology)+open source” is a good track during the shift of the 3rd and 4th industrial revolutions.

Next time I could introduce the data mechanism CAIF is working on, which is the reason that we have the core value system - INCLUSIVE and OPEN SOURCE.


Happy weekends!

Yours Sincerely
Hu Quan

January 8, 2021