Las Vegas has become the latest city to embark on constructing a digital twin, following the unveiling of a digital model at the city’s Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month. Developed by Chicago-based Cityzenith and Las Vegas-based Terbine, the model encompasses a 2.7-square-mile portion of downtown Las Vegas and is intended to “help Las Vegas building owners transition to net-zero carbon emissions.”

As we noted in October 2021, the digital replica of the physical landscape was built using local city data. In the future, the developers see the model as an opportunity to accurately measure and design for the impacts of future plans on the city’s air quality, mobility, water management, and building emissions.

With the base model now completed, the next phase will involve input from stakeholders including real estate owners, government agencies, university researchers, data partners, architects, and casino operators, overlaying further detail on how the city is operated and used.

Las Vegas is the latest US city modeled by Cityzenith, with digital models of Los Angeles and Phoenix also being developed by the company as part of their Clean Cities – Clean Future initiative. The concept of digital twins, where a real-life object is accurately recreated in digital space, has gained traction in sectors such as urbanism, art, car manufacturing, and healthcare.

Earlier this year, we reported on Sotheby’s unveiling of a digital twin NFT home project currently underway in Miami. Late last year, meanwhile, we detailed the design of a modular apartment building by Assembly OSM, which uses digital twin technology to create collections of digitally-designed, fully customizable elements that are tracked, assembled, and constructed based on certain specifications.