Digital Twins made easy – Meet the new Microsoft Fabric feature

Are you using Microsoft Fabric and want to create or apply Digital Twins? Our team was in Vienna for the Microsoft Fabric Conference. What stood out to us was not only learning about the latest features of Microsoft Fabric but also the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in dedicated lab sessions. One of the highlights was the announcement of the Digital Twin Builder – a new feature that brings Digital Twin solutions natively to Microsoft Fabric.

What is a Digital Twin?

A Digital Twin is a virtual representation of real-world objects, processes, or systems that synchronizes with real-time data at regular intervals. The goal is to digitally mirror the physical world to better understand relationships, optimize processes, and make informed decisions.

The new Digital Twin Builder in Fabric

The Digital Twin Builder is currently available in preview and falls under the Real-Time Intelligence category.

With the Digital Twin Builder, Microsoft Fabric enables significantly more efficient solution development:

• Low-Code/No-Code: The low-code/no-code functionality allows Digital Twins to be easily modeled.
• Ontology-Based: Business concepts, assets, and processes are semantically described and interlinked.
• Native Integration: Data from event streams, Event Hubs, and OneLake can be directly integrated.
• Visual Insights: Results can be displayed in real-time dashboards and through Power BI Copilot or Operational Agents.
• Standards & Interoperability: Support for RDF, DTDL, OPC-UA, USD, and more, with SDKs for partner ecosystems.
  
• 3D Options: 3D visualizations can be enabled via OpenUSD.

Use cases for the Digital Twin Builder

You may be asking yourself how exactly you can use the Digital Twin Builder. Its value comes into play wherever states and outcomes need to be mapped in real-time. Below are some example use cases:

• Manufacturing & IoT
  Factories can create digital representations of their machines, production lines, or entire facilities. This helps reduce downtimes, optimize processes, and improve product quality.
• Energy & Utilities
  Digital Twins of power grids or substations allow the integration of environmental and grid load data, resulting in improved efficiency and compliance with regulatory requirements.
• Transportation & Logistics
  Rail operators like CSX plan to use the Digital Twin Builder to convert dynamic operational data into an ontology. This serves as a basis for making more precise predictions about fuel consumption on different routes.
• Consumer Goods & Retail
  Production and supply chains can be represented as Digital Twins to monitor inventory, reduce costs, and improve service levels.

Conclusion: Why the Digital Twin Builder is worth it

Digital Twins are not a new concept – but practical implementation has often been complex, fragmented, and expensive. The new Digital Twin Builder addresses these common challenges by seamlessly integrating into the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem – from data ingestion to operational use in real-time systems.
The benefits are clear: the low-code/no-code functionality lowers the barriers to adopting Digital Twin development. The direct connection between IT and OT data in Fabric simplifies integration into existing systems, while the OneLake integration ensures effortless scalability.
The Digital Twin Builder is one of the most significant new features introduced at the Fabric Conference. It enables real-world objects, processes, and systems to be digitally mapped in real-time and integrates this data seamlessly with the analytics and visualization capabilities of Microsoft Fabric. This allows for faster recognition of complex relationships, process optimization, and improved data-driven decision-making – across industries from manufacturing to energy, logistics, and consumer goods.