[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 118 (Tuesday, June 18, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51554-51555]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-13379]


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NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION


Networking and Information Technology Research and Development 
Request for Information on Digital Twins Research and Development

AGENCY: Networking and Information Technology Research and Development 
(NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO), National Science 
Foundation.

ACTION: Request for information.

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SUMMARY: On behalf of Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), 
the NITRD National Coordination Office seeks public input for the 
creation of a National Digital Twins R&D Strategic Plan. The Plan will 
act as an organizing national document, providing guidance for 
government investments in digital twins related research and offering 
valuable insights to help guide further federal R&D coordination to 
advance technology and accelerate the use and early adoption of the 
digital twin models to address the nation's priorities and fast-track 
agency missions. The Plan is scheduled to be released in mid to late 
2025.

DATES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments on or before 
11:59 p.m. (ET) on July 28, 2024.

ADDRESSES: Comments submitted in response to this RFI may be sent by 
any of the following methods:
     Email: [email protected]; Email submissions 
should be machine-readable and not be copy-protected. Submissions 
should include ``RFI Response: Digital Twins R&D Plan'' in the subject 
line of the message.
     Mail: Attn: Melissa Cornelius, 2415 Eisenhower Avenue, 
Alexandria, VA 22314, USA. Telephone: 202-459-9674.
    Instructions: Response to this RFI is voluntary. Each individual or 
institution is requested to submit only one response. Submissions must 
not exceed 10 pages in 12 point or larger font, with a page number 
provided on each page. Responses must include the name of the person(s) 
or organization(s) filing the comment and the following statement: 
``This document is approved for public dissemination. The document 
contains no business-proprietary or confidential information. Document 
contents may be reused by the government in the National Digital Twins 
R&D Strategic Plan and associated documents without attribution.'' 
Responses to this RFI may be posted online at https://www.nitrd.gov/. 
Therefore, we request that no business proprietary information, 
copyrighted information, or sensitive personally identifiable 
information be submitted as part of your response to this RFI.
    In accordance with FAR 15.202(3), responses to this notice are not 
offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding 
contract. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated 
with responding to this RFI.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Craig Schlenoff, Melissa Cornelius, 
Simon Frechette, Stacey Levine, Steven Lee, Qing Wu at [email protected] or (202) 459-9674. Individuals who use a 
telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) may call the Federal 
Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339 between 8 a.m. and 8 
p.m., Eastern time, Monday through Friday, except for U.S. Federal 
Government holidays.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The National Academies of Sciences, 
Engineering, and Medicine (The National Academies) released its report 
on digital twins, Foundational Research Gaps and Future Directions for 
Digital Twins (2024). The report makes recommendations for federal 
agencies to launch crosscutting programs to advance mathematical, 
statistical, and computational foundations for digital twins and 
identify collaborative opportunities. In response to this, the Fast-
Track Action Committee (FTAC) on Digital Twins (DT) is developing a 
National Digital Twins Research and Development (R&D) Strategic Plan 
(the Plan) that lays out the Digital Twins R&D priorities within 
federal agencies.
    Terminology: As defined in The National Academies report, 
Foundational Research Gaps and Future Directions for Digital Twins, A 
digital twin is a set of virtual information constructs that mimics the 
structure, context, and behavior of a natural, engineered, or social 
system (or system-of-systems), is dynamically updated with data from 
its physical twin, has a predictive capability, and informs decisions 
that realize value. The bidirectional interaction between the virtual 
and the physical is central to the digital twin. This definition will 
be used for the purposes of this RFI, but respondents are welcome to 
provide alternate definitions if digital twins have a different meaning 
in their industry or field, along with the scientific rationale for 
specific use-cases. Reference citation as appropriate.
    Information Requested: Responsible innovation in digital twins 
could provide significant benefits for the American people. This RFI 
seeks input to shape a whole-of-government effort on research and 
development related to digital twins across domains. Examples include 
but are not limited to biomedical sciences, climate change, smart 
cities, and scientific discovery. This RFI is soliciting R&D topic 
areas in which the strategic plan should focus, as well as details that 
should be considered when/if the topic area is elaborated in the 
strategic plan. Example topics are included below, but we welcome other 
topics as appropriate. Respondents may provide information related to 
one or more of the topics outlined below and should indicate the topic 
to which they are responding by using the keyword in bold. Possible 
topics include (listed in alphabetical order):

[[Page 51555]]

     Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI and Digital Twins: 
Possible focus areas: integration of digital twins with artificial 
intelligence (AI); leverage generative AI for digital twin modeling & 
simulation with the consideration of the potential impact on a digital 
twins' physical counterpart
     Business: Business Case Analysis: Possible focus areas: 
foundational research cost; evaluate value/return on investment; cost 
and time to implement
     Data: Encourage Adoption of Data Management Best 
Practices: Possible focus areas: governance methods for data 
collection, curation, sharing and usage; shared public datasets and 
repositories; real-time data integration
     Ecosystem: Establish a National Digital Twin R&D 
Ecosystem: Possible focus areas: collaborations across agencies to 
identify and address foundational research gaps and opportunities that 
spans areas such as biomedical sciences, environmental ecosystem, 
sustainability & climate change, smart and connected communities, 
scientific discovery, agriculture, military & mission planning, as well 
as common mathematical, statistical, and computational foundations
     International: International Collaborations on Digital 
Twins: Possible focus areas: global scale digital twins across foreign 
markets; global issues and digital twin development consensus 
standards; opportunities for international collaboration (e.g., 
European Union's Horizon 2020 program funding digital twin projects)
     Long Term: Identify Long Term Research Investments: 
Possible focus areas: novel approaches for interactive data-driven 
modeling and simulation, both crosscutting and fit for purpose; 
research enabling the bidirectional flow between the virtual and the 
physical assets; creating test environments for digital twins ensuring 
sufficient resources and sustainable high-performance computing
     Regulatory: Regulatory Science Challenges associated with 
the use of Digital Twins
     Responsible: Promote Responsible Development & Use of 
Digital Twins: Possible focus areas: ethical use of digital twins; 
identifying ethical issues, mitigating and biases with respect to data 
ownership, intellectual property and privacy
     Standards: Promote Development of Evaluation Tools, 
Methodologies and Consensus Standards for Digital Twin Development and 
Testing and Interoperability: Possible focus areas: community of 
practice, ontology and data exchange protocols; encryption standards; 
taxonomy; address challenges related to evaluation of data-driven 
Digital Twin components; continuous and multi-modal data sources; 
personalized applications derived from Digital Twins; transferability, 
generalizability and robustness of Digital Twins
     Sustainability: Design and Develop Systems and 
Architectures for Digital Twin Sustainability: Possible focus areas: 
sustainment as the operating systems and computational models on which 
they are based evolve and the data which they ingest are updated; 
intentional organizational effort and purpose-built modeling ecosystems 
energy-awareness; early consideration of computational requirements and 
effective workflows; develop approaches for the design, development, 
and deployment of Digital Twins; the ability to create interoperable 
Digital Twins with evolving technology and standards
     Trustworthy: Realize Secure and Trustworthy Digital Twins: 
Possible focus areas: develop solutions to assure the security, cyber 
resilience, and trustworthiness of digital twins (taking into account 
all components of DTs such as their code base, data and data 
processing, operational environments, networking and connectivity with 
the physical counterpart); develop capabilities to utilize DTs to 
improve the security and cyber resilience of the physical counterpart, 
such as through threat analysis, attack modeling, risk analysis, 
security testing and similar analyses conducted on the Digital Twins
     VVUQ: Develop Rigorous Methods for Verification, 
Validation, and Uncertainty Quantification for Digital Twins: Possible 
focus areas: foundational and cross-cutting methods as well as domain 
specific; integration of VVUQ into all elements of the full digital 
twin ecosystem
     Workforce: Cultivate Workforce and Training to Advance 
Digital Twin Research and Development: Possible focus areas: diverse 
talent recruitment; incentivize cross-disciplinary STEM research 
programs across educational institutions
    We encourage responses to be organized according to the preceding 
outline, although we also welcome responses that address only a subset 
of the items. Submitters are encouraged to address the topics of this 
RFI clearly and concisely.

References

 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 
2024. Foundational Research Gaps and Future Directions for Digital 
Twins. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26894.
 A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine-
appointed ad hoc committee, Committee Members and Sponsors, Events, 
Publications.
 Digital Twins--The Networking and Information Technology 
Research and Development (NITRD) Program.
    Submitted by the National Science Foundation in support of the 
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) 
National Coordination Office (NCO) on June 13, 2024.

(Authority: 42 U.S.C. 1861, et seq.)


Suzanne H. Plimpton,
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation.
[FR Doc. 2024-13379 Filed 6-17-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7555-01-P