The concept of a digital twin, a live, continuously updated virtual model of a physical asset or system, has moved from research paper to operational reality faster than most of the water sector anticipated. A 2025 review of 147 peer-reviewed studies spanning the urban water cycle found that digital twin research in the water sector grew from a single publication in 2015 to 41 studies in 2024. The trajectory reflects not just academic interest but real investment by utilities and engineering firms in operational digital twin deployments. 

For Brazil, the relevance of this trajectory is acute. A water sector undergoing the most significant structural transformation in its history, with hundreds of new treatment facilities to be planned, designed, and built over the next decade, cannot afford to manage those assets using analogue methods. The question is not whether digital twins will play a role in Brazil’s infrastructure future. It is what role OEMs will play in that digital twin ecosystem. 

What Digital Twins Are Actually Doing in Water Infrastructure 

It is worth being precise about what a digital twin means in a water infrastructure context, because the term covers a wide range of applications and maturity levels. 

At the operational end, digital twins are being used for real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and performance optimisation. SABESP’s digital twin deployment is a strong example: the system centralises corporate data to monitor remote field sensor performance, detect equipment failures, analyse pressure anomalies, and support real-time hydraulic simulation. This is the kind of operational intelligence that transforms how a utility manages a network spanning millions of connections. 

At the planning end, digital twins support capital planning, feasibility assessment, and scenario modelling. These applications are less visible than operational twins, but arguably more consequential for OEMs, because they are where technology choices get made. When a utility runs a scenario to evaluate the impact of a new treatment technology on a facility’s operational profile, the technologies it can model are the technologies it will consider. 

The global digital twin water distribution market reached USD 1.34 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 4.26 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 13.7%. Brazil is explicitly included in that growth trajectory, and the country’s investment in digital water infrastructure is accelerating alongside its physical infrastructure programme. 

The OEM Integration Problem 

Here is a challenge that many technology providers have not yet confronted directly: for an OEM’s product to appear in a digital twin model, someone has to put it there. And right now, in most digital twin deployments, that someone is either a utility’s internal engineering team or an external consultant, working from whatever product documentation the OEM has provided. 

This creates two problems. The first is accuracy. Product documentation, even when it is detailed and current, is not the same as engineering logic. A consultant building a digital model of a treatment process based on a product datasheet is making assumptions, some of which will be wrong. The resulting model may underestimate performance, overestimate cost, or fail to capture the operational characteristics that make the technology attractive in the first place. 

The second problem is completeness. When technology options are modelled by third parties working from external documentation, the technologies that get modelled are the ones that are already well-known, well-documented, and frequently specified. New or innovative technologies, even technically superior ones, are systematically underrepresented because the effort required to model them is proportionally higher. 

OEMs that want their technology to be accurately and consistently represented in digital twin models need to get ahead of both problems. That means encoding their product logic in formats that design platforms can consume, and engaging with the digital infrastructure that utilities and consultants are actually using. 

The Link Between Generative Design and Digital Twins 

Generative design and digital twins are often discussed as separate technologies, but in practice they are part of a connected workflow. Generative design tools like the Transcend Design Generator produce the structured, engineering-quality design data that digital twin models are built on. When TDG generates a conceptual design for a wastewater treatment facility, it produces not just drawings and documents but machine-readable data: equipment specifications, process parameters, cost structures, and engineering assumptions, all in a format that downstream systems can use. 

For OEMs, this connection is strategically significant. By integrating product logic into the generative design stage, through the Transcend Nexus program, technology providers ensure that their equipment appears in the design data from the very beginning. When that design data is used to build an operational digital twin, the OEM’s product is already represented accurately in the model. The integration effort is done once, not repeatedly for each project. 

Brazil as a Digital Twin Proving Ground 

Brazil’s combination of infrastructure urgency, private sector investment, and institutional appetite for digital tools makes it one of the most important proving grounds for integrated digital twin and OEM technology in the global water sector. 

The utilities leading Brazil’s digital transformation, SABESP, Caesb, BRK Ambiental, are not adopting digital tools incrementally. They are building digital workflows from the ground up, with an ambition to achieve universal sanitation coverage by 2033. The technology choices embedded in those workflows now, from the generative design platforms used for early-stage optioneering to the digital twin frameworks used for operational management, will shape the sector for decades. 

For OEMs with ambitions in Brazil, the message is clear. Digital twin integration is not a future consideration. It is a present-tense competitive requirement. The utilities that will build and operate Brazil’s next generation of water infrastructure are already selecting their digital partners. The OEMs that integrate their product logic into the platforms those utilities are using will have a structural advantage in every project evaluation, every specification process, and every technology decision that follows. 

What Forward-Looking OEMs Are Doing Now 

The most strategically advanced technology providers in the water sector are not waiting for digital twin adoption to mature before engaging with it. They are taking a two-stage approach: first, embedding product logic into generative design platforms that produce the structured data digital twins are built on; second, working with utilities and consultants to ensure that their technology is accurately represented in the operational digital twin models being deployed across the sector. 

This approach requires investment, in engineering time, platform partnerships, and organisational change. But it also produces returns that compound over time: more accurate representation in technology evaluations, wider specification across a growing project portfolio, and a sustained presence in the digital infrastructure that will govern Brazil’s water sector for the next generation. 

The infrastructure is being built, both physical and digital. The OEMs that are part of both will be the ones that define what Brazil’s water future looks like. 

To explore how Transcend is helping OEMs integrate their technology into Brazil’s emerging digital infrastructure ecosystem, visit transcendinfra.com/nexus.