When Danish algorithms meet Egyptian villages: the cross-cultural transplantation dilemma of digital twins in wastewater treatment

In 2024, Veolia’s Hubgrade digital twin system accomplished a feat at the Køge wastewater treatment plant in Denmark that has engineers talking: through AI‑driven real‑time optimisation of aeration and hydraulic scheduling, the plant, which was under capacity pressure, not only avoided new construction that would have cost tens of millions of euros, but also increased wet‑weather hydraulic treatment capacity by 35% to 60%, while reducing energy consumption by 35%. Capital expenditure savings exceeded €10 million.

Not a metre of pipe was excavated, not a cubic metre of concrete was poured. A digital model running in the cloud rewrote the fate of a physical facility.

This story has been repeatedly cited across the European wastewater industry — and for good reason. It represents a paradigm shift: infrastructure bottlenecks do not necessarily have to be solved with more infrastructure.

But when we try to transplant this story to a completely different setting — say, a village in the Nile Delta of Egypt, or a remote community in eastern Jordan — the logic begins to unravel.

The preconditions for technology to work are themselves a privilege

The reason Veolia’s Hubgrade system worked in Denmark rests on an invisible chain of preconditions:

A stable power grid keeps sensors continuously online; high‑speed networks enable real‑time data backhaul to the cloud platform; an existing PLC control system provides the “access point” for the digital twin; and most importantly, the operators — those who can understand the optimisation recommendations pushed by the system and respond correctly within minutes.

Every link in this chain can break in rural Middle East.

According to aggregated data from multiple UN agencies and academic studies, the safe treatment coverage rate for rural wastewater in the Middle East and North Africa region has long remained at a low level; in rural areas of some countries, more than half of the wastewater is discharged directly without any form of effective treatment. Rural Egypt has long been recorded as having extremely low sanitation coverage, with the vast majority of village domestic wastewater flowing into agricultural drains rather than treatment systems.

To talk about digital twins in this context is somewhat like discussing the selection of a smart thermostat in a room that does not even have brick walls — the tool itself is good, but the foundation is not yet there.

It is not about “whether it can be used”, but “how to use it correctly”

The conclusion that digital twins are useless for rural Middle East wastewater problems is too simplistic and incorrect.

A more accurate judgment is this: direct transplantation does not work, but layered adaptation has a path.

The first layer is the choice of the physical system.

European digital twins are built on centralised wastewater treatment plants. The reality of rural Middle East dictates that decentralised treatment systems (DEWATS) are a more appropriate physical carrier — technologies such as anaerobic baffled reactors (ABR), facultative ponds and constructed wetlands do not require complex pipe networks, have low maintenance demands, and have controllable operating costs. The practices of GIZ in El‑Moufty village, Egypt, and of BORDA in Southeast Asia have validated this logic: first establish an operational foundation through decentralised treatment, and only then consider digital overlays.

The second layer is the choice of the digital entry point.

Not all Hubgrade functions need to be replicated, nor are all functions suitable for the current rural Middle Eastern context. The most valuable entry point is remote monitoring and predictive maintenance — using low‑cost IoT sensors to collect key operating parameters (dissolved oxygen, effluent ammonia nitrogen, equipment current), and completing anomaly alerts through edge computing or lightweight cloud platforms, thereby reducing treatment failures caused by equipment breakdowns. This is a “reduced‑dimension version” of the digital twin, but it addresses the most genuine pain point on the ground: the lack of sufficient local technical personnel to remain on site over the long term.

The third layer is the human factor.

If technology transfer consists only of equipment and systems, without accompanying capacity building, it will ultimately become an external dependency rather than local capability. Part of Veolia’s success in Europe is due to the fact that their clients themselves possess the capacity to absorb the technology. In rural Middle East, this capacity needs to be built in parallel with the technology, rather than assumed to exist by default.

A window that is opening

It is worth noting that the macro‑policy environment in the Middle East is creating new possibilities.

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 National Water Strategy sets a target of 90% for wastewater treatment and reuse rates, and explicitly incorporates digital operations into the strategic framework. As of 2024, Saudi Arabia has committed over USD 6.28 billion in project investment in the water treatment and wastewater sector, including systematic deployment in the direction of smart water management. Kuwait has deployed 125,000 smart water meters, while Dubai in the UAE is advancing a USD 22 billion strategic sewage tunnel project. These signals indicate that the digital water infrastructure in the Middle East is accelerating.

However, this wave of investment is predominantly concentrated in the urban areas of the wealthy Gulf states. For countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Yemen, which face more acute water stress and larger rural populations, funding sources rely more on international development funds and multilateral institutions, cost sensitivity for technological solutions is considerably higher, and therefore the pathway choices are more conservative.

This is precisely where adaptive solutions have value. If the supply side of digital twin technology can offer lightweight products designed for low‑resource environments, rather than only complete suites designed for large wastewater plants in developed countries, then the demand from the rural Middle Eastern market is not a distant future, but a reality that can be specifically planned for.

A question without a standard answer

The Køge case proves one thing: digital twins can overturn our conventional assumptions about infrastructure bottlenecks. But it also reminds us that the power of technology is never universal — it depends on specific systems, specific people, and specific conditions.

Migrating the European experience to the Middle East is not an engineering problem with a fixed answer; it is more like a cross‑cultural translation that requires continuous calibration. You need to preserve the logic of the original text, but re‑express it in the local language.

Is it possible to succeed? I believe it is.

But the prerequisite is that those who undertake it truly understand that they are not dealing with the same plant growing on the same soil, but two entirely different growth environments — one needs optimisation, the other first needs to take root.

This article combines the Veolia Hubgrade digital twin case with the current state of wastewater treatment in the Middle East, exploring cross‑regional adaptation pathways for AI‑based water technology. The FyhoneOS platform are continuing to deepen research and practice in the intelligent operation and maintenance scenarios for rural decentralised wastewater treatment. Readers with interest in this field are welcome to engage in discussion.