Samsung C&T (028260) is embedding digital twin technology into its renewable energy plant operations from the earliest stage of its entry into the industry. The move also reflects a calculation to build digital twin capabilities in advance as a competitive edge for future external business. A broader trend is emerging across the Samsung Group — including Samsung C&T, Samsung Electronics (005930) and Samsung SDS — to adopt digital twin as a new business engine.
According to the information technology (IT) industry on Wednesday, Samsung C&T's Engineering & Construction Group and Simacro, a US-based startup founded by a Korean entrepreneur, are building a predictive digital twin system at the green hydrogen production complex in Gimcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, completed in March. The Gimcheon plant is a facility complex that produces more than 230 tons of hydrogen annually solely through solar power generation, without any external electricity or gas supply. Samsung C&T also oversees the operation of the Gimcheon plant and plans to use the digital twin for operational management. Digital twin refers to a technology that replicates real-world spaces and facilities in a virtual space.
Samsung C&T and Simacro are focused on building a predictive operating system. The intermittency of solar power causes irregular generation output, which in turn makes it difficult to maintain a steady volume of hydrogen production. The digital twin at the Gimcheon plant is being developed to overcome the weaknesses of solar power generation and maintain stable hydrogen output.
For example, artificial intelligence (AI) learns weather information and then simulates future solar power generation volumes and the resulting hydrogen production in a virtual computer environment. If the simulation predicts that solar generation will decline and hydrogen output will drop accordingly, the system calculates the scale of electricity needed to offset the reduction in hydrogen production. Managers can refer to the simulation results to make decisions about adjusting the reserve volume of solar-generated electricity. This allows fluctuations in hydrogen production to be prevented in advance.
"Renewable energy production facilities usually cannot have large numbers of personnel stationed on site, and in the case of the Gimcheon plant there is also no external power supply," Simacro CEO Yoon Jeong-ho said. "It is a facility that produces hydrogen entirely on its own, and by embedding a predictive digital twin model here, we will maintain stable hydrogen production volumes."
Samsung C&T aims to make digital twin a differentiated card in its renewable energy plant operations business. If Samsung C&T internalizes digital twin technology for renewable energy plants, it will gain greater competitiveness to put forward in future sales related to plant operations. Based on this judgment, Samsung C&T and Simacro are developing the Gimcheon plant project so that its output can be used as Samsung C&T's standard digital twin system.
The trend of turning digital twin into a new sales weapon is being detected across the Samsung Group. After forming a close alliance with Nvidia last year, Samsung Electronics announced that it would put more weight on its AI factory business by leveraging 50,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) it had secured as a resource. The AI factory business extends to external operations that support the AI transformation (AX) of production facilities at small and medium-sized suppliers in the semiconductor industry. The AI factory includes functions such as facility anomaly detection, failure prediction and production schedule optimization, all implemented on a digital twin platform.
Samsung SDS, the Samsung Group's system integration (SI) affiliate, has picked digital twin as one of its key new businesses for this year. Samsung SDS's key strategy for this year is to link the Samsung Cloud Platform (SCP) with digital twin to build competitiveness against rivals. When SCP is used to aggregate data generated at industrial sites in real time, this data improves the accuracy of digital twin simulations. The more accurate simulations, in turn, generate higher-quality data, creating a virtuous cycle. In addition, Samsung Heavy Industries (010140) is pursuing the commercialization of a ship management solution that uses digital twin technology to monitor the key status of vessels in real time.
Experts predicted that Samsung's digital twin business will first target AX demand from large companies at home and abroad. "In traditional industries such as manufacturing, narrowing the gap between the normal state and the ideal state in processes is always a challenge," said Hwang In-ho, CEO of data integration solutions company Boundfor. "Simulations using digital twin are a groundbreaking way to close that gap while reducing time and manpower inputs, so interest among large companies is high."
