Abstract Acoustic black holes (ABHs) offer new opportunities for designing mechanical devices that can trap and reduce the vibrational energy of a system. This paper proposes the digital realization of the ABH effect, also called virtual ABH (VABH), through piezoelectric patches. A self-contained and autonomous reduction vibration device is thus developed. However, piezoelectric VABHs raise theoretical and experimental difficulties which are discussed herein. An improved pseudo-collocated approach is proposed, and the synthetic impedance is theoretically derived. Experiments are conducted using a cantilever beam where the VABH is implemented with few piezoelectric patches. It is shown to provide excellent vibration reduction over a large frequency range. The herein presented original concept solves the two long-lasting challenges of mechanical ABHs, i.e, its manufacturing and inability to operate at low frequencies, making it highly attractive for applications on real-life structures.