China’s business capital, Shanghai, is betting big on Metaverse as the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology’s has come up with a five-year development plan to capitalize on it.
Shanghai development plan, released on Thursday, is the first to mention Metaverse, as per a report by CNBC. This is the first time that a Chinese local government’s plan prioritized, or even considered, the Metaverse.
As per the report, the document states the list of specific areas of development to prioritize the Metaverse. These are public services, business offices, social entertainment, industrial manufacturing, production safety, and electronic games. In addition, the commission further targets the research and development of the relevant technologies. These include sensors, real-time interaction, blockchain.
Organizations, such as Facebook (now Meta), have recently given impetus to Metaverse technology. Even,Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that he expects most virtual meetings to move to the Metaverse in two or three years.
What is Metaverse?
Metaverse, in simple language, is a network of virtual worlds with social connections. Various organizations in China and across the globe are in a race of developing a metaverse of their own. Some of these are Baidu, Alibaba, Meta, Sandbox and Decentraland. Metaverse has several uses ranging from trading in digital assets, purchasing gaming items, business offices, social entertainment, and the list is endless.
Going beyond Metaverse
So what beyond Metaverse is being explored in china? In recent months, Sovereign’s interest has been unwavering to establish a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The use of digital biometric hardware wallets for the virtual Yuan is also being explored. Many nations share the fear of its base technology, which is blockchain technology. The technology is decentralized and tracking it is a challenge. The developments coincide with worldwide endeavours to use blockchain technology in everyday works.
In November last year, it may be recalled the People’s Bank of China had issued a warning on Metaverse and nonfungible tokens in continuation to China’s crackdown on Crypto. But, going by the recent development, it looks like the government has taken care of bottlenecks associated with Meta. Otherwise, the local musical body of Shangai wouldn’t have gone ahead with it.