Johnson Controls, Microsoft partner to create healthier, safer and greener buildings

The campus infrastructure team at the National University of Singapore (NUS) wanted to refresh the university’s ageing buildings and create a smart campus with connected, automated systems and a more comfortable outdoor environment. But they couldn’t find a way to get the dozens of standalone systems in the university’s 260 buildings — from air conditioning to elevators and fire protection — to talk to each other.

Then someone suggested Microsoft. “We use Microsoft as the computer software to do our work. We always think of Microsoft as a software company,” Chew Chin Huat, the team’s Senior Director of campus operations and maintenance said in a Microsoft blog post.

“We never knew that Microsoft could be an integrator of operational technology systems.”

After talking to Microsoft and visiting the company's headquarters in the US, Chew was sold. “We saw that Microsoft was going through the same problems we have — planning better use of old buildings, utilising office spaces more efficiently without intruding into staff privacy, working with architects and engineers to upgrade old systems without creating new boundaries,” he said.

“We were able to understand how Microsoft faced those challenges. In a way, I think we spoke the same language.”

Today, NUS, Microsoft and Johnson Controls (JCI), which provides many of the university’s key building controls systems, are working together on integrating the building systems and creating a more sustainable campus.

Microsoft and Johnson Controls launched a global partnership to provide integrated digital twin technologies for designing and managing buildings and spaces on December 8, the same day Microsoft announced the general availability of its Azure Digital Twins. Azure Digital Twins is the latest Azure platform service integrated into Johnson Controls’ cloud-based OpenBlue platform for building management.

Digital twin technology allows customers to see what is happening in the real world in real time, so they can address potential problems and improve experiences. “It enhances the ability to monitor and manage buildings in a new and unique way that provides better visibility, more real-time monitoring and modeling of how a building runs,” said Mike Ellis, Executive VP and Chief Customer and Digital Officer for Johnson Controls.

“We are outcome-focused for our customers, and a focus on sustainability, safety, security and customer experience is core to what OpenBlue is all about.”

“We have an incredible opportunity to use advances in cloud and compute capabilities to help customers reimagine the physical world,” said Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s Executive VP for Cloud + AI.

“By integrating the power of Azure Digital Twins with JCI’s OpenBlue Digital Twin platform, our collaboration will provide customers with a digital replica and actionable insights to better meet their evolving needs.”

NUS sees digital twins as one of the potential solutions in meeting its goals of becoming carbon neutral and reducing the outdoor temperature on the university campuses by 4 degrees Celsius (^o C) by 2030, Chew said. Singapore’s average temperature is around 26.7^o C and the island has been heating up twice as fast as the world average over the past six decades, according to government data.

Microsoft and Johnson Controls’ integrated platform will be used to create simulations that can help determine how those measures will impact energy consumption and ambient temperature.

“We can’t do it by chance,” Chew said.

“We’ve got to do it systematically by computer simulation. Once we’re satisfied, then we will start the physical work. Technology can help us accelerate our transition toward a carbon-neutral and cool campus.”

Achieving NUS’ goal of carbon neutrality will also require reducing the university’s heavy reliance on air conditioning, Chew said. NUS is creating digital twins of its buildings and will be analysing data to find ways of reducing energy consumption and making energy systems run more efficiently. The goal is to create intelligent spaces in buildings that can automatically power off when no one is there, or deliver air conditioning only to areas that are occupied.

The aerospace and manufacturing industries have been using digital twins for years, but their application for buildings is relatively new. The technology thus requires more people with relevant skills, which Microsoft and Johnson Controls have been developing through training NUS graduates and employees to use their integrated platform.

The university has also started using Power BI, Microsoft’s data visualisation platform, for predictive maintenance, and Microsoft is guiding the NUS team on how to use artificial intelligence (AI) for monitoring building systems.

Chew describes the collaboration as a true partnership, with both companies’ expertise aligning to support the NUS team’s 10-year vision for a more connected, data-driven and carbon-neutral campus.

“They’re not just selling a product. They’re not just guiding us to use a product,” he concluded. “They’re helping us to shape the industry as well.”

Source: NUS, via a Microsoft blog post. The National University of Singapore is using digital twins as part of a 10-year plan to create a more sustainable campus. Pictured: The National University of Singapore’s Stephen Riady Centre.

In September, Johnson Controls opened a lab at NUS focused on developing solutions for healthier, safer and more sustainable connected spaces. The customisable solutions created at the OpenBlue Innovation Center will be tested at the university.

“Our unprecedented focus of co-innovating cutting-edge technologies through collaboration with Microsoft and the NUS will spark greater innovation and true differentiation for our customers,” Ellis said.

“Our OpenBlue solutions, closely connected with Microsoft’s platform and workplace technologies, represent an unbeatable opportunity to help our customers make shared spaces safer, more agile and more sustainable.”