The country's future reconstruction should be based on high-tech designs based on the latest standards. This will enable quick and correct decisions to be made at a lower cost. Denys Bratchuk, Director of Engineering at GlobalLogic, told Mind, what the most promising technologies and IT solutions to help rebuild Ukraine are already being created by Ukrainian engineers.
As forecasted by the World Bank, the country's reconstruction will cost more than $400 billion. The global recovery project will include a complete infrastructure modernisation that will make Ukraine a modern and competitive player in the global market. The government is aware of possible challenges for Ukraine's Marshall Plan: the President named the following as 5 promising areas for future investment attraction: Europe, agriculture, green energy, localisation of production and IT. And it is the IT industry that has a fundamental impact on the development of other areas.
I believe that Digital Twins, IoT (Internet of Things) and other advanced solutions for construction and industry may become the main technologies that will have an impact on the country's recovery. Ukrainian engineers already have vast experience in developing and applying these technologies around the world, which will significantly reduce the time for their implementation.
Digital Twins technology is rapidly gaining popularity around the world. According to forecasts, by 2025, its market value will reach $6.69 billion in manufacturing companies alone. Digital twins make it possible to generate a "twin model" of any real object – a house, a company or an entire city. For example, a virtual twin of Singapore already exists.
Digital Twins can create a virtual model of the destroyed Mariupol or other cities: the technology can digitise and design future neighbourhoods, parks, recreation areas and an efficient transport system based on modern construction technologies. As a result, the needs of the residents of future Ukrainian cities will be met in terms of environmental friendliness, comfort, development prospects, and accessibility for the elderly and people with disabilities.
Digital twins make it possible to understand how a city is currently living and plan its development, reconstruction and expansion in the best possible way, not only focusing on how it lives now, but also with a view to the future.
Business and industry will be the key to the further growth of restored cities. They will also benefit from Digital Twins: the technology is already creating virtual replicas of storage facilities. In the future, this will allow warehouses that have been destroyed or converted to military use to be quickly rebuilt to meet the requirements of new businesses.
Automation of warehouses using robots will also be beneficial: it will help reduce the time spent on cargo handling and make supply chains more flexible. GlobalLogic's Ukrainian engineers are already successfully implementing this. For example, for a leading automated warehouse manufacturer, a digital twin has reduced time of entry into a market by 20%, while cutting human resources for preliminary analysis by 85%.
Digital Twins will boost the country's green energy sector in the future. The emphasis in rebuilding the power system is gradually shifting towards renewable sources due to Ukraine's potential in this area. According to analysts, wind turbines and solar panels can cover up to 50% of the economy's own needs. The President said that in the long term, Ukraine could become a major green energy hub for Europe, making it independent of russian gas and oil supplies.
In addition, this technology can simulate the operation of wind turbines and virtually diagnose their performance, which will simplify the assessment of the risks of malfunctions. This will reduce maintenance time, maintain business continuity and reduce the overall cost of maintaining a wind farm.
Moreover, IT developments such as Digital Twins can bring the industry to a new level of competitiveness. Our Ukrainian engineers are already working on critical technologies that provide round-the-clock online monitoring of power plants. IT solutions also help to predict weather conditions, which, together with other developments, improves the accuracy of energy generation plans. And when you can predict the amount of electricity generated, you can predict sales.
IoT (Internet of Things) technology will hold an important place in the great industrial rebuilding. IoT platforms are now being used by large manufacturing companies to manage equipment in warehouses, offices and end users. Such cloud-based platforms are able to collect real-time data from equipment for further analysis, predict the volume of actual maintenance, etc.
Also, it is much easier for organisations already working with IoT to implement Digital Twins. Such a technological symbiosis (IoT + Digital Twins) can help Ukraine optimise operations during the reconstruction of its enterprises. For example, the restoration of the Antonov Plant, which was damaged at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, could be optimised and accelerated by collecting and analysing sensor data to help reduce costs, calculate the amount of materials needed, and identify production weaknesses.
In the future, IoT will also enable the creation of a single integrated platform that will be useful to businesses. For example, it will help a construction company to build a smart home on the site of a destroyed high-rise building. IoT technologies will simplify the management of ventilation and temperature in the premises, provide fire and physical security sensors, and support life support systems in a bomb shelter. All information will be collected within a single platform, which will allow residents to be quickly notified of danger and quickly identify malfunctions.
The rebuilding of residential neighbourhoods and entire cities will be one of the key tasks of recovery. According to a study by the Kyiv School of Economics, as of January 2023, about 149,300 homes in Ukraine were destroyed or damaged.
The rebuilding of the environment of war-torn cities should be based on inclusiveness and the needs of people with disabilities. This task requires the development of specific solutions.
GlobalLogic experts, for example, have developed a fully operational control system for elevators, escalators and barriers. The technology allows contactless control of these devices, which will be a good addition to the barrier-free environment of the future and improve the mobility of people with disabilities.
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Starting from January 2023, GlobalLogic's Ukrainian consultants will upgrade the leading tool for modelling the electricity transmission market, which is widely used in the United States. Moreover, our engineers are fruitfully cooperating with colleagues from Poland, Italy, and other European countries, helping to develop the energy sector and increase its efficiency through the use of modern cloud technologies in industrial solutions. I sincerely hope that the experience gained will be useful in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.