In May 2025, SAS and Epic Games announced a joint effort to combine SAS Viya AI analytics with Unreal Engine for manufacturing digital twins. Georgia-Pacific is the first pilot, running the technology at its Savannah River Mill to optimize automated guided vehicle operations.
The setup uses RealityScan for photorealistic plant capture and a co-developed plug-in that connects Unreal Engine to SAS Viya for real-time data access from simulated environments.
Our take
The interesting part is the architecture. The game engine handles the visual and interactive layer. The AI analytics platform handles the data. The digital twin runs as an operational tool with live data feeding live decisions.
We've built digital twins for clients in automotive, manufacturing, and hospitality since 2014. What's different now is that companies like SAS are treating Unreal Engine as production infrastructure. Georgia-Pacific running this at an actual mill, optimizing real AGV routes from real sensor data, is a different conversation than what we were seeing at trade shows three years ago.