This document discusses how digital technologies like the internet of things, artificial intelligence, and digital twins are enabling new business models focused on outcomes and services rather than products. This shift from products to services allows for greater efficiency and sustainability by optimizing resource use and removing waste. Digital technologies are also accelerating progress exponentially, enabling thousands of years of technological advancement in the 21st century alone. Together, these changes may decouple economic growth and human well-being from finite resource consumption and environmental impacts, moving from linear "take-make-waste" models to circular and sustainable models of limitless growth.

1. Roberto Siagri
Digital Twins and
New Business Models
From Limits to Growth to
Limitless Growth

2. ‘The Limits to Growth’ alarmed the world by the
unsustainability and dire consequences of unbridled
economic growth, Giarini offers a correspondingly
affirmative vision of economics with unlimited potential for
wealth and welfare.[†]
MIT WORLD3 Simulation Dennis Meadows,
• the end of the Gold Standard in 1971
• the publication of The Limits to Growth in 1972
• the first oil crisis in 1973

3. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY
Today violence is at its lowest and personal freedom is at its highest
In the last 100 years
a) Infant mortality decreased by 90%, maternal mortality by 99%
b) Food is much cheaper and available (costs 13 times less)
(c) Electricity, transport, telecommunications costs
10 to 1000 times less

4. 4
GDP growth and Life Expectancy increase

5. Amigdala
How much of our perceptions is close to reality ?
Is it more driven by our primordial instinct to survive?

6. in the 21st century we will not
experience 100 years of progress
...
but 20,000 years of progress.
Credit: R. Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near
Exponential Technologies

7. The 6 Ds of Tech Disruption
Peter Diamandis

8. Riconoscere l'animale
8
?
dalle gambe e dalla coda

9. Riconoscere l'animale
9
dalle gambe e dalla coda

10. Operations
per
second
The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999), by Ray Kurzweil
One insect brain
One mouse brain
1040
1035
1030
1025
1020
1015
1010
105
1
10-5
One human brain
All human brains
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100
How much computation capacity 1,000 USD buy

11. Technology progress in 300 year from now

12. Vertical Farms Run by AI and Robots To Solve the Land Crisis
vertical farm
produces
400 times more
food
per acre
than a flat farm

13. Food Technology Will Replace the Use of Animals by 2035
96 percent less land,
87 percent less water,
89 percent less carbon
emissions (CO2).

14. Extreme longevity
Life Extension
“We may live to age 1,000”
Aubrey de Grey
Covid-19:
“Immune rejuvenation
requires general rejuvenation”
Aubrey de Grey

15. Software Defined Machines
Mechanics
Source: adapted from “Software gibt den Takt vor”, C. Kühnl in “Mechatronic & Fertigung”, 2010
SW
Software
+
AI
Services
Mobile
Comm.-
5G
Electronics
3^ Industrial Revolution
4^ Industrial Revolution
Electric
parts
Mechanics
Electronics
Edge
Computing

16. the
‘Things’
are making
the
difference
in 2025
79 ZB of data will
be generated by
IoT devices
The Internet of Things

17. Digital Twins

18. Data
Things
(Assets/Products)
New Business
Models
Digital
Twins
Internet of Things & Digital Twins

19. Developers & Customer
communities
Post Cloud : a matrix of Clouds at the Edge
Cloud
Data Center
5G + Edge
Company
API
IOT
Data Gravity

20. From Industrial Production to
Digital Production
in 4 Phases
Short
Medium-Long
Credit: World Economic Forum;
Industrial Internet of Things: Unleashing the Potential
of Connected Products and Services Jan.2015
Time
Growth
1. Operative Efficiency
2. New Products &
Services
3.Outcome Economy
4. Autonomous,
Pull Economy
IoT
AI

21. Product Service Systems Software is eating the world
and
AI will eat the software

22. Auction house D.Art (“platform business”) organises its yearly modern art-painting auction in
Zürich. The auction (“infrastructure”) is a well-known event that will help to make the paintings
of young talented artists (“producers”) and art collectors (“consumers”) more accessible to each
on an as-need basis. Experts (“agents”) are present to advise groups of collectors on relevant
artists (“trust”).
What is a Platform Business Model

23. Servitization in Art : Niio platform for digital arts

24. Credit: Pentti Malaska
Basic Needs
Agriculture Age Industrial Age Service Age
Tangible Needs Intangible Needs
We are
here
From Limits to Growth to Limitless Growth

25. Linear Organization : Open Loop
Product’s Sales Model :
Product’s Life Cycle responsibility transferred
from Manufacturer to Consumer
RESOURCES PRODUCTION DISTRIBUTION CONSUMPTION WASTE
Credit Walter Stahel
?
?

26. PRODUCTION
DISTRIBUTION
USE/OUTCOME
REUSE/REPAIR
RECYCLE/RESOURCES
Outcome Economy
the disappearance of the change of ownership
Digitization
Business
Model
change
Circular
economy

27. The principle of
doing ever more
with ever less
Space, Time, Matter
and Energy
Innovation moves from material to abstract
Richard Buckminster Fuller
1895 - 1983

28. The Exponential drop of ‘Computing’
28

29. USA GDP vs Total Use of Matter
a
weightless
economy

30. 30
Euro / Kilo
 Jet Fighter 8000€ Kg
 Haute couture 5000€ Kg
 Smart Phone 10000€ Kg
 CPU 35000€ Kg
 Notebook 1000€ Kg
 Sport Car 100€ Kg
 Sedan 50€ Kg
 Utility Car 15€ Kg
Gold 55000 €/ Kg

31. Digital Production and ‘slices’ of time
▪ From selling Products to selling Performance/Outcome
▪ IoT (Digital Twins), AI and BigData
Example: Car as a Product vs. Car a a Service Assumptions: weight 1000 Kg, price 50.000 €, usage 5%
Product sales : 50.000 € -> 50.000€/1000 Kg= 50 €/Kg
Services sales : 5.000 €/Y * 10Y * 20 served User= 1.000.000 € -> 1.000.000€/1000Kg= 1000 €/Kg
Removing
>95%
of usage
Inefficiency
Efficiency
X20
Example: Fully Autonomous Car (L5)

32. ecology
Value x Kg Man-hours
x Kg
Resources
consumption
Wealth
Value from
renewable
Jobs
adapted from Walter Stahel, The Performance Economy
How to
Increase
Value per
Kg
“Less is More”
The Decoupling Age

33. L’era del Decoupling
Less is More
Adapted from International Resource Panel, 2017,
Disaccoppiamento del benessere
Disaccoppiamento delle risorse
Disaccoppiamento degli Impatti
Impatti Ambientali
Riuso delle
Risorse
Attività
Economica
Benessere
Tempo

34. Subscription
companies
exceeded
their industry
S&P 500 benchmarks
by
more than 5X
before Covid
S&P 5000 Industrial Sector
SEI Manufacturing
130
125
120
115
110
105
100
MANUFACTURING SECTOR
Source: Zuora, October 2019 - Subscription Eeconomy IndexI (SEI) TM Zuora
IoT in Manufacturing
and Services Enablement
Sales Growth

35. Digitization
is opening the
door to a new
phase of
sustainable
growth
driven by
new
service
oriented
business
models
Source: Infographics by the Government of Japan visualizing a Society 5.0
Digitization for a Super Smart Society
IoT
Big
Data
AI
Robot

36. some suggested readings
…the simulations of Jay Forrester and Denis Meadows
point not to the end of economic growth as such, but to
the end of one sort of economic growth…
From Limits to Growth to Limitless Growth
Orio Giarini- The Limits to Certainty (1993)

37. www.eurotech.com
Thank you
roberto.siagri@eurotech.com