Meeting the Complexity of Modern Buildings and Cities
Smart buildings and cities are becoming increasingly complex. From multi-tower office campuses to transportation hubs and urban districts, the amount of data generated—and the number of systems that need to work together—has grown exponentially.
To manage this complexity effectively, digital twins—the virtual representations of physical assets—must evolve. They need to be not just accurate and comprehensive, but also AI-ready, interoperable, and capable of scaling with growing portfolios.
Why OpenUSD Matters
To address this challenge, Akila is standardizing on OpenUSD (Universal Scene Description) as the foundation for all its digital twin models. Originally developed by Pixar, OpenUSD is an open-source 3D framework designed for collaboration, high fidelity, and scalability. While it was first used in visual effects, it is now powering real-world infrastructure, bridging the gap between complex building data and actionable insights.
OpenUSD offers several key advantages for modern digital twins:
- AI-Ready Structure: Its graph-based architecture allows for natural language queries, AI-driven analytics, and simulation. Stakeholders can ask precise questions and receive actionable answers quickly.
- Scalable Across Portfolios: OpenUSD supports everything from single buildings to entire urban complexes, enabling organizations to manage large and diverse assets efficiently.
- Open and Interoperable: Being open-source, OpenUSD avoids vendor lock-in, ensuring that data remains accessible and compatible with future systems.
- Real-Time Simulation: Energy consumption, airflow, occupant movement, and other dynamic behaviors can be modeled in real time, supporting both operational optimization and strategic planning.
- Future-Proof Integration: OpenUSD integrates seamlessly with platforms such as NVIDIA Omniverse and Metropolis, laying the groundwork for AI-native infrastructure management.
Turning Digital Twins Into AI-Native Platforms
Adopting OpenUSD is not just a technical upgrade—it’s a strategic shift. By leveraging its capabilities, Akila transforms digital twins from static representations into AI-native platforms.
This evolution enables:
- Smarter operations: stakeholders can quickly identify inefficiencies, predict maintenance needs, and optimize energy usage.
- Faster insights: AI-driven queries and simulations reduce the time between data collection and decision-making.
- Better planning: large-scale scenarios, from emergency response to urban development, can be tested virtually before implementation.
- The Bigger Picture: Smarter Buildings, Smarter Cities
OpenUSD provides the foundation for a new era of infrastructure intelligence. It allows Akila’s clients to move beyond traditional monitoring and reporting, empowering them to ask better questions, get faster answers, and make more informed, proactive decisions.
In a world where urban environments are growing more complex every day, digital twins powered by OpenUSD are helping organizations stay ahead—turning data into insight, and insight into action.
