Simulation in the Age of AI and Digital Twins

Simulation in the age of digital twins and AI is undergoing a profound transformation as stochastic modeling, data-driven intelligence, and real-time virtual representations converge into a unified ecosystem.

Traditional stochastic simulations, once confined to isolated models, are now embedded within rich digital twin environments that integrate continuous data streams, sensor inputs, control loops and visual analytics. This shift demands real-time or near-real-time simulation capabilities, elevating the roles of Bayesian updating, data assimilation methods, and rigorous uncertainty quantification to support real-time decision-making in domains such as healthcare, smart cities and autonomous systems. At the same time, the fusion of simulation with AI is enabling more adaptive, accurate, and dynamic models that learn from data, combine first-principles with machine learning, and automatically explore vast parameter spaces to identify optimal solutions. As digital twins increasingly operate in scalable cloud infrastructures and simulations become both more interactive and more intelligent, the synergy between AI and stochastic modeling is redefining how complex systems are predicted, optimized, and controlled. Together, these advances mark a pivotal evolution in simulation science—one that enhances precision, accelerates insight and expands the possibilities in tackling today’s most intricate engineering, economic and environmental challenges.

2026 I-SIM Workshop

North Carolina State University
July 31 – August 3, 2026
Centennial Campus, NC State University, Raleigh, NC
Organizers: Sara Shashaani, Hong Wan and Giovanni Amici

Bonus: No registration fees

Confirmed Plenary Speakers

• John Birge (The University of Chicago Booth School of Business)
• Peter Glynn (Stanford University)
• Youssef Marzouk (MIT)

Tutorial Speakers for the Summer School

• Jose Blanchet (Stanford University)
• Stefan Wild (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
• Hong Wan (NC State University) and Susan Sanchez (Naval Postgraduate School)
• Yao Xie (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Confirmed Speakers

• Russell Barton (The Pennsylvania State University)
• David Brown (Duke’s Fuqua School of Business)
• Chun-Hung Chen (George Mason University)
• Jing Dong (Columbia University)
• Peter Frazier (Cornell University)
• Soumyadip Ghosh (IBM)
• Shane Henderson (Cornell University)
• Jeff Hong (University of Minnesota)
• Susan R. Hunter (Purdue University)
• George Lan (Georgia Institute of Technology)
• Javad Lavaei (University of California Berkeley)
• Craig Mann (SAS)
• Johannes Milz (Georgia Institute of Technology)
• Karthyek Murthy (USC Viterbi School of Engineering)
• Marvin Nakayama (New Jersey Institute of Technology)
• Raghu Pasupathy (Purdue University)
• Giulia Pedrielli (Arizona State University)
• Chang-Han Rhee (Northwestern University)
• Ilya Ryzhov (University of Maryland)
• Sara Shashaani (NC State University)
• Eunhye Song (Georgia Institute of Technology)
• Roberto Szechtman (Naval Postgraduate School)
• Quoc Tran-Dinh (UNC Chapel Hill)
• Jonathan Walker (SAS)
• Yangyang Xu (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
• Zeyu Zheng (University of California Berkeley)
• Enlu Zhou (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Summer School

A full-day summer school (tutorial program) co-sponsored by the NC State College of Engineering that will be open to workshop attendees and NC State faculty, staff and students.

• COMING SOON

Schedule

• Three days of invited sessions, panels and networking
• One day of tutorials and summer school with focus on AI and Digital Twin

The workshop will include:

• Industry connections in the NC Research Triangle: SAS, IBM, etc.
• NC State, Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill faculty
• Poster session and reception for Ph.D. students and junior researchers
• Excursions near NC Sate University

Don’t miss this opportunity to help shape the next generation of intelligent, data-driven simulation. NC State welcomes you to Raleigh in the Summer of 2026 as we chart the frontier of Simulation in the Age of Digital Twins and AI.

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