WA gov inks $73m deal for core digital twin platform

The Western Australian government has secured one of two core platforms it will need to build a digital twin of the state’s landmass, awarding a $73.7 million contract to global technical services firm Jacobs Solutions.

Jacobs will develop the spatial digital twin platform, a virtual environment designed to help government agencies visualise the built and natural landscape, analyse spatial data, and model future scenarios.

The work forms part of the first phase of the $140 million Spatial WA program, a 10-year initiative funded through the state’s Digital Capability Fund and overseen by WA land information authority Landgate.

This phase will explore four key use cases, which include exposure modelling for emergency response; infrastructure projects and assets; digital approvals workflow; and land management.

While Jacobs has been appointed to build the platform, the government is yet to select a supplier for the second core component of the program: the Next Generation Spatial Cadastre (NGSC), a modernised system to record property boundaries and ownership in 3D and 4D.

The NGSC is intended to replace WA’s current two-dimensional cadastral maps with richer, spatially accurate models that reflect height, depth and change over time.

The state will also procure separately the third-party software licences and hosting infrastructure needed to support the digital twin platform, at an estimated cost of $39.4 million over 15 years.

Western Australia joins a number of other states exploring spatial digital twin technology. Victoria debuted a spatial model in 2022, offering a live feed of state energy production and data from the Bass Strait specifically for tracking seals.

Queensland also explored the digital twin concept and dedicated funding towards investigating a South-East Queensland model in the 2023-2024 budget, after developing a prototype with CSIRO and Data61 in 2021.