A fire starts in the server room on the 13th floor of an office building. Within minutes smoke detectors get a whiff of the danger and the fire alarm sounds, triggering a full evacuation. The sprinkler system kicks in as the fire rages into the corridors. Firefighters arrive at the scene and rush into the building, following old blueprints, job experience, and natural instincts to locate the fire, putting their lives on the line to extinguish the flames and search for any remaining building occupants. This is how our traditional “dumb” buildings respond to a fire. In our future smart buildings, however, the response to fire promises to be very different. Advanced sensor networks can recognize a fire much sooner and understand its potential spread, HVAC configurations change automatically to help control the blaze, occupancy analytics can locate anyone trapped in the building, while digital twins can provide first responders with real-time information to support […]