The term "metaverse" is more of a business symbol; it doesn't actually introduce any new technology, but rather integrates a large number of existing technologies.
Professor Chen Gang and Dr. Dong Haoyu of Peking University define the metaverse as follows: "The metaverse is a virtual world that is linked and created using technological means, and maps and interacts with the real world. It is a digital living space with a new social system." [12] [85] The new visual scenes generated by the metaverse will make more people immerse themselves in the virtual world and unable to extricate themselves.
Since the term "metaverse" appeared in the 1990s, there has been a lot of discussion about it, especially during the pandemic when people's online activities surged, and even more so after Facebook changed its name to Meta.
So, what exactly is the metaverse? How do we define this term, and where is the boundary between the metaverse and another virtual world? These are common questions about the metaverse. Therefore, I want to outline how we view the metaverse and how it interacts with Web3.
In many ways, the metaverse is simply another name for the evolution of the internet: more social, more immersive, and more economically complex than the current internet. Broadly speaking, there are two conflicting visions for how to achieve this: one is decentralized, with ownership belonging to users, featuring numerous new domains and open spaces owned by the communities that build and maintain it. The other is centralized, closed, and subject to the regulations of large corporations that often extract profits from network creators and contributors.
Professor Shen Yang of the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University defines the metaverse as follows: "The metaverse is a new type of Internet application and social form that integrates multiple new technologies. It provides an immersive experience based on extended reality technology and generates a mirror image of the real world through digital twin technology. It builds an economic system through blockchain technology, closely integrates the virtual world with the real world in economic system, social system, and identity system, and allows each user to produce and edit content." [13] "The metaverse is still a constantly developing and evolving concept, and different participants are constantly enriching its meaning in their own ways." [37] Some scholars have also defined the metaverse from four aspects: spatiotemporality, authenticity, independence, and connectivity through "archaeological" research on the concept and ideas of the metaverse. From a spatiotemporal perspective, the metaverse is a digital world that is virtual in the spatial dimension but real in the temporal dimension; from a realism perspective, the metaverse contains both digital replicas of the real world and creations of the virtual world; from an independence perspective, the metaverse is a parallel space that is both closely connected to the external real world and highly independent; from a connectivity perspective, the metaverse is a perpetual and widely covered virtual reality system that encompasses networks, hardware terminals, and users.
Judging from the current situation, people's previous expectations for the metaverse were indeed too high.
In 2021, the sandbox game community Roblox went public, making the metaverse concept a hot topic. However, a year later, Roblox's stock price plummeted, and Facebook, which renamed its metaverse "Meta," showed signs of fatigue, with second-quarter results falling short of expectations and its stock price continuing to decline. Adding to this, some domestic companies that had previously capitalized on the metaverse hype have largely disappeared from the scene this year, with some even embroiled in financial disputes with employees, creating a truly chaotic situation.
In just one year, the metaverse concept went from being a top trend to being a nobody. The reason behind this is actually not complicated—it's simply that they couldn't produce any actual products.
The concept of the metaverse sounds cool, but it's not easy to implement. For example, Bilibili CEO Chen Rui publicly pointed out in the Q3 earnings call last year that no single company has enough content production capacity to complete the products involved in the metaverse concept. Furthermore, the social system and internal ecosystem involved in the metaverse concept "cannot be done well in a few months, or even a year or two."
Without substantial content, even the coolest story can't sustain investor enthusiasm. And as the metaverse craze subsides, industries previously associated with the concept are also facing difficulties—for example, the VR industry, which is seen as the ticket to the future metaverse.
Black Shark, whose acquisition was abandoned, shows that VR is not the next big thing.
Speaking of VR these days, domestic consumers might immediately think of the gaming phone brand Black Shark.
In early October, several media outlets reported that Black Shark was drastically reducing its workforce, with a layoff rate of nearly 50%, most of whom were employees working on VR projects.
At the State Grid Baoding Power Substation, a robot equipped with a 3D camera uses its robotic arm to open the door to the control room, completing routine power inspections for the staff. This is a vivid example of the integration and application of multiple technologies, including 3D modeling and mixed reality (XR), in the metaverse.
On November 2nd, the first Metaverse Industry and Technology Seminar, hosted by the Metaverse Industry and Technology Alliance, was held in Beijing. Regarding the recently released industry support policies related to the metaverse, Tang Xiongyan, Vice President of the China Unicom Research Institute, told the China Securities Journal that the policies have pointed out the development direction for the virtual reality industry, encouraging companies to apply the technology to more real-world scenarios, and the metaverse industry is showing an accelerated development trend.
Building Metaverse Infrastructure
Tang Xiongyan believes that deep applications of the metaverse possess extremely high interoperability and scalability, but current computing power levels are insufficient to support large-scale industrial applications of the metaverse. If infrastructure such as computing power and networks does not keep pace, technologies such as digital twins and mixed reality (XR) will struggle to truly realize their full potential.
Currently, China's three major telecom operators are actively developing metaverse infrastructure. Bi Yana, Technical Director of the China Mobile Research Institute, explained that China Mobile is building a new type of information infrastructure that integrates multiple elements such as network, cloud, data, intelligence, security, edge computing, terminal, and blockchain, with computing power at its core and the network as its foundation. China Unicom stated that it is promoting the integration of computing power and network services to solidify the digital foundation for realizing the Internet of Everything.
According to Mao Shijie, Vice President of Lenovo Group and Dean of the Shanghai Research Institute, the spatial computing layer and creation layer of the metaverse require new technological support. "The spatial computing layer solves the positioning and reconstruction of space, and realizes the rendering and creation of models of people, machines and objects."
Let me first briefly introduce our views on the metaverse, and then introduce our platform—Zimi Lab. I will discuss the Big Bang of Intelligence, which is essentially the Big Bang of the metaverse, from three perspectives. We believe that the metaverse is not a short-term concept, but rather a long-term phenomenon that may occur over the next 30 to 50 years, or even 100 years.
We believe the metaverse is a meta-narrative, a shared story about the dream of truth and unification. Globalization is a relatively old meta-narrative; for the past 60 years, people have been talking about globalization, hoping to dismantle the barriers between the world. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, wars, and nationalism, the story of globalization is no longer sustainable. The metaverse, where "meta" signifies transcendence, aims to transcend the limitations of time and space, and geographical boundaries. It marks the beginning of a new, grand narrative for the future, and therefore we believe the metaverse is a new meta-narrative.
It is understood that as one of the special events of the 2022 World VR Industry Conference, the 2022 XR (Metaverse) Health Competition is the first metaverse health sports competition game activity IP in China. It will organize online and offline competitions around XR+ health sports, sports competitions, fitness games and other content, and realize cloud-based multi-person synchronous, multi-dimensional competition and diverse experience through the construction of a multi-person competitive game social platform in virtual space.
As one of the event organizers, Xu Xiaohan, Operations Director of Jiangxi Radio and Television Digital Media Convergence Culture Technology Development Co., Ltd., introduced that the 2022 XR (Metaverse) Fitness Competition has partnered with leading domestic digital economy companies such as Huawei and China Mobile to select VR/XR sports games with mature interactivity, visualization, and professionalism. A batch of technologically advanced and motion-sensing smart terminal equipment has also been selected to join the competition, which will surely bring participants a brand-new competition experience. Currently, the competition is in the cloud preliminary rounds, and will continue with multiple rounds of competition, including experience rounds, star selection rounds, and the finals.
The term "metaverse" has become incredibly popular in the last two years. Roblox, dubbed the "first stock in the metaverse," saw its market capitalization jump from $4 billion to over $40 billion last year; the Communication University of China and the University of California, Berkeley held graduation ceremonies in Minecraft; renowned American singer Travis Scott held a concert in Fortnite; even Facebook shamelessly changed its name to Meta. What's going on in this world? Now even my dad is asking, "What is the metaverse?"
