Industrial Metaverse Spend to Reach US$6.3 Billion by 2030 As Immersive Engineering Use Cases Take Hold

The industrial metaverse (IMV) is set to greatly enhance manufacturing engineering, training, safety, and production. According to a new report from global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, spending on industrial metaverse solutions and services will grow at 22.8% to reach US$6.3 billion by 2030 as immersive and collaborative capabilities come to the forefront of industry 4.0 software development efforts.

IMV solutions use immersive technologies and digital twin initiatives, integrating data virtualization, Artificial Intelligence (AI) simulation, business operations systems, and external data sources to enable connectivity between digital twins and other systems. “Top IMV use cases for 2024 will be in training, collaboration, and production planning, with a strong emphasis on solutions that drive positive business outcomes in a short timeframe,” explains Ryan Martin, Senior Research Director, Industrial & Manufacturing at ABI Research. “Large deployments that are costly or take a long time to demonstrate value will be avoided in favor of smaller projects that drive incremental results that scale.”

Examples include Norwegian clean battery producer FREYR equipping its gigafactories in Norway and in the U.S., Siemens Industrial Operations X, AWS IoT TwinMaker, and NVIDIA Omniverse are creating immersive metaverse experiences. Danone is using Matterport Pro3 cameras to capture 3D imagery of its facilities so authorized users can virtually visit and explore the production site using a computer or mobile device. Burckhardt Compression uses PTC’s spatial computing services for remote assistance and automated report-generation scenarios involving a supertanker in the middle of the ocean. Other notable providers include AVEVA, Dassault Systèmes, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Nokia.

“The dream to enable full factory metaverse experiences is far from realized, but the work has begun,” Martin concludes. “Initial implementations will start with a portion of a factory or production line, likely on an as-needed basis. The broader environment is well-suited to partnerships that ease points of integration and enable marketplaces in the long run.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Industrial Metaverse: Use Cases, Deployments, and Case Studies report. This report is part of the company’s Industrial and Manufacturing Technologies research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights.