Networked Twins and Twins of Networks: An Overview on the Relationship between Digital Twins and 6G

Digital twin (DT) is a promising technology for the new immersive digital life with a variety of applications in areas such as Industry 4.0, aviation, and healthcare. Proliferation of this technology requires higher data rates, reliability, resilience, and lower latency beyond what is currently offered by 5G. Thus, DT can become a major driver for 6G research and development. Alternatively, 6G network development can benefit from DT technology and its powerful features such as modularity and remote intelligence. Using DT, a 6G network (or some of its components) will have the opportunity to use artificial intelligence more proactively in order to enhance its resilience. DT's application in telecommunications is still in its infancy. In this article, we highlight some of the most promising research and development directions for this technology. © 2017 IEEE.