By: Johan Potgieter - Cluster Industrial Software Lead at Schneider Electric

Large infrastructure projects have a stubborn reputation. Globally, major capital works such as transport corridors, water treatment facilities, smart city backbone systems routinely exceed budget and fall behind schedule. In fact, the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that large infrastructure projects run on average, 80% over budget and 20 months behind schedule.

It is an eye-watering number and begs the question, can we afford to delay digital transformation any further?

Enter digital twin technology, which has matured significantly over the past three years. What began as a design visualisation tool has evolved into something considerably more consequential: a full-lifecycle asset intelligence platform.

At Schneider Electric, we are seeing this shift play out across infrastructure projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Unlike earlier generations of digital twins that were largely confined to design visualisation, today's platforms create physics-based, behavioural models that remain connected to live operational data throughout the asset lifecycle

As an example, the traditional commissioning model is linear and sequential. Design is completed, equipment is installed and then the testing begins. And this is when the problems start to surface.

Virtual commissioning and resultant digital twins invert this logic entirely.  By constructing a high-fidelity digital replica of the physical asset prior to construction, engineering teams can validate control logic, test failure scenarios, and identify integration conflicts before a single cable is pulled.

What this means is that testing and risk mitigation is moved into pre-construction phase, where design changes can be implemented in software, at a fraction of the cost of correcting issues during physical commissioning

The digital world of IT and OT

The OT/IT convergence question sits at the heart of this capability. Edge control systems have historically operated in isolation from enterprise data layers. Here, open architectures like Schneider Electric EcoStruxure bridges that gap, delivering real-time telemetry from field devices up through to SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and MES (Manufacturing Execution System ) layers, while feeding live operational data into simulation environment.

This creates a unified data environment in which engineering models and operational realities are continuously reconciled, enabling faster commissioning and more informed decision-making across the asset lifecycle

The result is not merely faster commissioning, it is a persistent digital thread that continues to generate value through operations, maintenance, and eventual asset renewal. By keeping the digital twin synchronised with the physical asset, operators can support predictive maintenance, optimise performance, and model future upgrades long after project handover

Capital risk is also reduced. Lifecycle performance improves. And critically, asset owners gain a shared data environment that supports multi-stakeholder collaboration across the project lifecycle.

Detangling the infrastructure layers

It is also the above, last point, that deserves more attention; infrastructure projects involve an unusually complex web of stakeholders like government clients, engineering contractors, systems integrators, operations teams, and regulatory bodies.

Again, misalignment between these groups is one of the primary drivers of scope creep and rework.  However, virtual commissioning, when embedded within a shared simulation environment, creates a common operational reference point. Disputes over design intent become testable hypotheses rather than contractual arguments.

For example, a smart city is not a discrete project, it is a layered, interdependent ecosystem of energy, water, mobility, and communications infrastructure. Designing each of these systems in isolation, then attempting integration at commissioning, is a recipe for exactly the kind of delays we are trying to eliminate.

The architecture required to address this demands modular, interoperable platforms built for scale from day one , not retrofitted with digital capabilities after handover. 

AVEVA's simulation tools, combined with Schneider Electric EcoStruxure’s edge intelligence layer, are designed with this complexity in mind. Scalable digital continuity, where the twin evolves alongside the asset rather than becoming obsolete at handover.

In the end, digital twins will not solve the financial constraints that shape infrastructure delivery. However, it will substantially reduce the technical and operational risk that compounds those constraints into failure, and that is that is a meaningful contribution.