This paper will describe the Autonomous Mill of the future as a mill that benefits from the use of Digital Twins utilizing a Process Model coupled with a Control Model of the real-time Control System to allow the Autonomous Mill to “run itself” with little or no human intervention. This paper will then give an overview of the unit operations & equipment common to pulp & paper mills & conclude with several examples of specific opportunities where control systems optimization through Advanced Process Control (APC) & Model-Based Predictive Control (MPC) can increase production; reduce costs, & autonomously operate the mill of the future. The pulp & paper mill is often divided into six “islands” of automation; raw material receiving & preparation (the woodyard), the pulp mill, the powerhouse, the paper mill, converting & finishing, & effluent treatment. Each of these islands presents their own, unique set of unit operations; but, you can see similar unit operations in various industries besides pulp & paper. For example, the powerhouse equipment, besides the main difference being that the fuel is “black liquor”, the equipment can be found in any other industrial power plant. In the paper machine “island”, the use of cascaded variable-speed drives to control the paper sheet tension is also seen in the draw line of a steel, textile, or fiber mill. And, as a final example, the effluent treatment facility of the paper mill has similar equipment you find in a municipal water/wastewater plant.