Digital Twins

A digital twin is a digital model of an intended or actual real-world physical product, place, system, or process (a physical twin) that serves as the effectively indistinguishable digital counterpart of it for practical purposes, such as simulation, integration, testing, monitoring, and maintenance.  In the world of geospatial digital twins, this may be a geographically precise and accurate digital representation of the built environment (e.g., a building, a cityscape, above ground or underground infrastructure, etc.), the natural environment (e.g., physical terrain, biogeography, weather, climate, etc.), or dynamic human geography.

With regard to the built environment, a digital twin can and does often exist before there is a physical entity. The use of a digital twin in the creation phase allows the intended entity's entire lifecycle to be modeled and simulated.[2] A digital twin of an existing entity may be used in real-time and regularly synchronized with the corresponding physical system.  This can extend to the entire planet.  For instance, a geospatial digital twin of the Earth can showcase all in situ and remotely sensed data of change within our biosphere in near-realtime, and use these updates as the basis for more accurate short-term, mid-term, and long-term predictions at micro-, meso-, and macro- scales.

Modified from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_twin.