The two-year (2022-2024) Metaverse innovation and development plan made public must be followed by all districts according to the Beijing municipal government.
The Metaverse is referred to in the development action plan as a new generation of information technology integration and innovation that will propel internet development toward Web3.
The innovation plan focuses on encouraging the growth of industries connected to the Metaverse and aiding Beijing in creating a model city for the digital economy.
The action plan stipulates that different municipalities must develop technology infrastructure at the city level and encourage its adoption in a number of industries, including tourism and education.
A visual urban area digital platform would be built as part of the development program, and the layout of digital native intelligent infrastructure would be suitably advanced through the integration of technical tools like 3D visualization and GIS (Geographic Information System).
The official document’s Google Translate translation was as follows:
“Promote digital education scenarios, support in-depth cooperation between Metaverse-related technology companies and educational institutions, expand intelligent and interactive online education models, and develop industry-wide digital teaching platforms.”
Additionally, districts and municipalities are required by the Metaverse Development Action Plan to provide financial and human resource support for the creation of virtual reality.
In order to foster innovation, the Beijing city government also mandated monitoring nonfungible token (NFT) technological developments and investigating regulatory sandbox initiatives.
Despite China’s well-known anti-crypto attitude, the country’s leadership has expressed interest in the Metaverse idea since early 2021.
The Metaverse was also featured in Shanghai’s five-year growth plan before Beijing. The government’s interest in emerging technology hasn’t led to any advantageous laws for tech companies testing the same concept, though.
Due to falling sales that were assisted by the regressive monetary policies of the Chinese government, Tencent was forced to shut down one of the two NFT platforms in July. Similar to this, only hours after launching its NFT marketplace, Alibaba was forced to remove any references to it.
Two significant Chinese cities have unveiled multi-year action plans with an emphasis on NFTs and the Metaverse. Leading Web3 technologies may become more widely adopted in China as a result of the government’s growing interest in them, much as the central bank’s digital currency (CBDC), which is already being used by millions of people as a pilot project.
