Glass Futures Unveils AI-Powered Digital Twin to Revolutionise Glass Manufacturing

Glass Futures has launched an advanced AI-driven digital twin of its glass furnace, designed to test and predict innovative methods for glass production. This cutting-edge model is housed at the organisation’s global centre of excellence in St Helens.

The digital twin replicates Glass Futures’ pioneering multi-fuel pilot furnace, integrating real operational data with simulated inputs and fundamental physics principles. Capable of performing over 11,000 simultaneous calculations, the system provides precise forecasts of glass output under varying conditions.

By simulating changes in temperature, pressure, density, and other critical parameters, the digital twin offers the glass industry a reliable platform to experiment with furnace operations without physical trials. This capability enables manufacturers to explore new fuels, electric heating techniques, and bubbling processes with confidence in the predicted outcomes.

The AI-GLASS initiative, active for the past year, is a collaboration between Glass Futures, NVIDIA—a leader in artificial intelligence—and the University of Liverpool’s Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC). The VEC has developed a fully immersive virtual reality model accessible through VR headsets.

Dr Jim Scotson, project lead for industrial digitalisation at Glass Futures, explained: “The digital twin enables us to test things industry has never tried out before. It means we can drive innovation by allowing manufacturers of glass and other materials to try new fuels, electric heating, bubbling and other techniques and get an accurate prediction of how the end product will turn out.”

He highlighted the role of NVIDIA’s RTX Pro 6000 GPUs and PhysicsNeMo technology, stating: “Thanks to NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000 GPUs, we can combine real pilot-line data with 16 sensor points and NVIDIA PhysicsNeMo, meaning it is informed by the laws of physics. Rather than just learning from our real and simulated data it already has a physics informed neural network so when we put data in, it digests this with physics principals meaning it’s incredibly accurate and can calculate 11,530 calculations all at once. This allows us to remove the barriers to experimentation by making things possible, more quickly.”

The creation of an exact digital replica allows the industry to experiment with decarbonisation strategies, efficiency improvements, and the adoption of low-carbon alternatives such as hydrogen and biofuels.

Anthony Hills, Director of UKI at NVIDIA, commented: “AI-GLASS shows how advanced AI can unlock entirely new ways of understanding and improving complex industrial processes. By combining NVIDIA’s accelerated computing with physics-informed modelling, Glass Futures is turning data into actionable insight at unprecedented scale. This kind of capability allows industries to move faster, experiment with confidence and make smarter decisions as they work toward more sustainable and efficient production.”

Glass Futures plans to collaborate with its members and partners across steel, ceramics, and other sectors to apply the digital twin in various projects. The organisation will also leverage its expertise to assist other teams in digitalising their operations.

Dr Scotson added: “This project wasn’t without its challenges. When we talk about flame shape and know just by looking at it how the furnace is performing, how do you describe pointy, jagged or flat to a computer? We solved this via temperature measurement, but we’ve learnt so much that we now want to support others with their digital, AI-driven projects. It might not be about a complete digital twin but how we can support them to take analogue information, digitalise it and use AI and modelling to extend the life of existing equipment.”

Dr Konstantin Vikhorev, Chief Technology Officer at the VEC, stated: “AI Glass will revolutionise how industry approaches decarbonisation. By merging advanced modelling and AI, we can help manufacturers explore new fuels and materials in seconds, reducing risk and accelerating progress toward sustainable, efficient and cleaner glass production.”

The AI-GLASS project is part of a broader £1.5 million Innovate UK funding programme delivered through Make UK.