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SAS Unveils Digital Twins on Unreal Engine

SAS teams with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to launch AI-powered digital twins, helping manufacturers like GP optimize operations through 3D simulations.

Written By: Jordan Smith

May 12, 2025

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At the SAS Innovate 2025 conference, the data and AI tech giant unveiled enhanced digital twins that combine the company’s AI and advanced analytics with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine (UE).

Tech built for manufacturers looking to experiment in the digital world before implementing in reality

These new digital twins are poised to assist manufacturers like Georgia-Pacific (GP), enabling them to experiment in simulated digital worlds and then utilize the best practices they learn in order to implement them in their real manufacturing facilities.

UE is an open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool. It enables developers and creators to build interactive 3D experiences, including for use by Epic in one of the world’s largest games: Fortnite.

“Today, we announced the exciting partnership with Epic Games to revolutionize digital twins experiences in the enterprise,” SAS CTO Bryan Harris said at the conference. “This combination of Epic’s Unreal Engine with state-of-the-art, world-class AI from SAS really is a game changer, simulating virtual environments, generating synthetic data, and delivering unparalleled insights for businesses.”

GP, a leading paper manufacturer, is piloting enhanced digital twins at its Savannah River Mill. It is leveraging SAS’s technology to optimize its use of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and other processes.

“If you think about game engines and video games, they have fidelity of those simulations, and those worlds have advanced so much that they really do a very strong job today of approximating reality,” said William Collis, the head of gaming analytics and simulation at SAS. “Unlike reality, when you simulate something in a game engine, you have basically perfect data. You can get out all the information for every object, item, motion, whatever it is, because it’s all contained inside this computer simulation.”

With RealityScan, a mobile app developed by Epic, SAS is able to capture photorealistic renderings of GP’s plant and import them into UE. SAS’ analytics and UE combined work to help GP fine-tune operations without disrupting actual production lines.

Innovations leverage operational data to drive better decision-making

Further, SAS Viya enables enterprises to organize massive amounts of data from factory operations and sensors into useful insights and more intelligent decisions.

“We see so many use cases across industries, but just thinking about or being here in Orlando– go to Disney World or Universal Studios Park, a lot of the rides there are built in Unreal Engine and a lot of the environments, the space, the parks themselves are actually designed in Unreal Engine simulation,” said Bill Clifford, VP and GM of Unreal Engine at Epic Games.

SAS intends to extend the capabilities of digital twins to additional manufacturers and seek out other industries that could benefit from this technology.

“We can see [this pilot] having up to double digit returns for us in terms of what we expect to optimize on facilities. That’s pretty exciting,” said Roshan Shah, GP’s vice president of AI & products. “As you think about taking it from one facility to the next, the ability to scale, that’s where it’s truly a bit of untested waters for us and we’re pretty excited about what we see when you think about taking it to 100 plus facilities.”

Earlier this year, NVIDIA, Accenture, and KION teamed up to develop AI-powered digital twins. Read more about how this partnership was established to optimize supply chains and boost resilience.

Jordan Smith

Jordan Smith is a news writer who has seven years of experience as a journalist, copywriter, podcaster, and copyeditor. He has worked with both written and audio media formats, contributing to IT publications such as MeriTalk, HCLTech, and Channel Insider, and participating in podcasts and panel moderation for IT events.

SAS Unveils Digital Twins on Unreal Engine

Tech built for manufacturers looking to experiment in the digital world before implementing in reality

Innovations leverage operational data to drive better decision-making

Jordan Smith

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