Nicole Kay is a Training and Simulation Engineering Delivery Manager with Thales in the UK, and is leading the engineering delivery for Thales’ programme at the UK Digital Twin Centre, which opens its doors on 1 May in Belfast. Here, Nicole explains why digital twins matter, how the new centre will act as a capability accelerator, and what Thales is doing to shape the future of this cutting-edge technology.

For those unfamiliar, what is a “digital twin” and how does it differ from a traditional simulation or model?

A digital twin is much more than just a virtual model – it’s a dynamic, digital replica of a physical system or process, linked through a two-way data exchange. This means the model doesn’t just mirror the physical asset – it evolves with it. At Thales, we might take data from an actual drone flight and feed that into the simulation so that the digital twin flies, not like a generic model, but like that exact drone in that exact environment. We can also go the other way – simulate conditions using real time data and use that insight to improve the physical system. 

This extreme level of accuracy and feedback loop is what sets digital twins apart from traditional models or simulators.

Why is digital Twin technology such an important area of focus for Thales?

It offers enormous potential across a product lifecycle – from early concept development to design, testing, operations, and through-life support. Our work with digital twins also helps our customers achieve their sustainability goals and dramatically improving efficiencies. For instance, reducing reliance on live trials by shifting a proportion of testing into virtual environments lowers carbon emissions and costs. It also enhances confidence in design decisions, streamlines development, and accelerates innovation. In short, it's transforming how we design, build, and operate complex systems.

What makes Thales’ approach so unique in this space?

A lot of digital twin work to date has focused on industrial processes – for example, twins of manufacturing lines. Thales is one of the few organisations tackling digital twins at an environmental scale. We’re modelling large, multi-domain operations – think of interactions between air, land, surface and sub-surface over an entire region – rather than just one isolated component on a production line. 

Thales’ background in advanced training and simulation has given us the tools to replicate entire operational environments with realism, interactivity, and live data fusion. 

Can you tell us more about the UK Digital Twin Centre and its role with industry?

The UK Digital Twin Centre is a £15 million initiative funded by Innovate UK and match-funded by industry, designed to accelerate the development and adoption of digital twin technology across the UK. Based in Belfast, the centre is being run by Digital Catapult, in partnership with Thales, Artemis Technologies, and Spirit AeroSystems. 

In a change from traditional research and innovation centres, this centre aims remove the key barriers that businesses face in adopting digital twin technology.  It will do so by providing access to cutting-edge technologies, lowering the cost of developing digital twins, and building digital skills across the workforce. The centre also offers a collaborative space for our growing number of partners in industry, academia, and the public sector, to foster cross-sector innovation and knowledge-sharing within the digital twin ecosystem.

What will you be showing at the launch?

As partners in the new centre, Thales, Artemis Technologies, and Spirit AeroSystems are each contributing real-world use cases to demonstrate what digital twins can do. Thales is delivering three, including our headline tool: the Air and Space Operating Environment Digital Twin (AOEDT). It’s a cloud-deployable, scenario-based simulation platform that enables mission planning and operational analysis, blending real-time data with immersive 3D environments.

Our AOEDT demo will showcase a counter-drone scenario set in an accurate simulated UK environment. It uses real drone flight data to replicate realistic drone behaviour and includes live data streams – from civilian air traffic to maritime and satellite tracking. It’s a fantastic example of how we can visualise and test critical infrastructure threats, or use the twin to train AI models, simulate “what if” scenarios, and analyse responses in near real-time and near real-world environments. 

How is Thales helping smaller businesses access and benefit from this technology?

A major goal of the UK Digital Twin Centre is accessibility, but Thales is going even further in lowering the barriers for SMEs by making accessible Digital Crucible: our suite of reusable software and tools, built on a modular, scalable architecture, that supports the development of digital twins. The platform integrates Thales’ NUADA product for discovery and orchestration, alongside TrustNest, our secure, sovereign cloud platform designed to host sensitive data and applications.

Combined with support through the UK Digital Twin Centre, SMEs will be able to explore how digital twins could help them solve challenges, prototype solutions, or test new business models without the prohibitive upfront investment.

This is a real cross-sector effort. Why is collaboration between government, industry, and academia so important in this space?

Collaboration drives innovation. Thales brings decades of expertise across defence, security and identity markets, as well as in the disciplines of systems engineering and simulation, but we also learn a huge amount from our partners. Artemis and Spirit AeroSystems, for example, bring maritime and civil aviation perspectives. Digital Catapult and Innovate UK help to bridge our work with academia and other industries. By working together, we can better understand wider market needs and develop technology that’s more widely applicable. Government investment, meanwhile, signals long-term confidence and de-risks our own investment in the innovation journey – encouraging businesses like Thales to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Looking forward, how does Thales see digital twins evolving – and what role will the centre play in that journey?

We see digital twins becoming integral to how organisations across every sector plan, operate and innovate. Whether it’s for infrastructure management, sustainable mobility, space operations, or smart cities, the technology will become increasingly essential. The UK Digital Twin Centre will accelerate that trajectory. It’ll enable us to better collaborate, experiment, and refine our offerings with direct feedback from a diverse community. Over time, we expect digital twin solutions to move from R&D into scalable, fully commercial offerings.

The future is about building trusted, flexible, and data-rich ecosystems, and Thales is positioning itself at the heart of that transformation.