Industry experts from the World Economic Forum (WEF) have bet heavily on the Metaverse sector. Metaverse technology, a key element of the Web3, is expected to see broad industrial adoption before individual consumers come on board the virtual universe ecosystem. More enterprises and industrial companies are expected to adopt Metaverse technology to bring a fresh new twist to their methods of advertising, task monitoring, and web design. Metaverse is based on blockchain networks and allows people to exist as avatars in parallel digital realities.
Two parts of the Metaverse technology – digital twinning and Augmented Reality (XR) – have been identified by the WEF as the most promising elements to fine-tune the sector.
While digital twinning revolves around collecting data and digitizing the physical environment around us, XR is an umbrella term that encapsulates everything Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR)and Virtual Reality (VR).
“We are witnessing the rapid emergence of a metaverse focused solely on industry. So far, digital twins have been used primarily for monitoring and analytics, but the full potential of the industrial metaverse is far greater. Private as edge and cloud processing capabilities 5G wireless networksand new sensor, interface and AI technologies will be added, we will move from a state of awareness to a state of control,” wrote Nishant Batra, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer at Nokia, in a WEF blog post.
The market opportunity for the Metaverse could reach an estimated $800 billion over the next two years recommend. Social media, gaming, and the automotive industry are expected to benefit from the boom in industrial Metaverse adoption.
“We will develop many technologies for the industrial metaverse that will find their way into the consumer metaverse – from micro-optics and advanced haptic interfaces to AI sensibilities. 5G-Advanced and 6G will enable true XR mobility, while edge and cloud processing capabilities will optimize the performance of Metaverse applications not only in industry but also for consumers,” Batra further noted.
The WEF is allegedly ready to open a Metaversum venue called Global Collaboration Village, which will be launched in Davos in the coming days. This will serve as a virtual destination for organizations and world leaders to meet and work.
