Shanghai, China’s most populated city, is exploring methods to employ metaverse in public services, this move will help to encourage the further research and development of underlying technologies
One of the four frontiers for exploration stated in Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology’s five-year development plan for the electronic information industry is metaverse.
According to a report by CNBC, the study recommended boosting the use of the metaverse in public services, company offices, social leisure, industrial manufacturing, production safety, and electronic games.
The commission wants to stimulate more research and development of underlying technologies including sensors, real-time interactions, and blockchain.
In recent years, China’s interest in new technologies has remained steady. China’s efforts to create a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and its usage of digital biometric hardware wallets for the virtual yuan have solidified the country’s position as a leader in CBDC issuance.
China’s State Council unveiled its 5-year development plan in March, which includes several of these same exploratory fronts.
The phrase “blockchain” was used for the first time in China’s 14th five-year plan. The document sets the country’s economic goals for the following five years, from 2021 to 2025.
The Metaverse adoption in China
In recent months, the metaverse has piqued the interest of a number of prominent corporations. Facebook changed its name to Meta in October to capitalize on the growing use of the word metaverse.
Despite the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) warning in November about metaverse and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), over 1,000 Chinese companies have submitted tens of thousands of trademark applications using the word. According to the South China Morning Post, more than 1,360 Chinese companies have applied for 8,534 trademarks.
Metaverse technologies are being developed by Chinese corporations, with Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba among those actively working on related projects. Baidu introduced its XiRang metaverse app last week, which will be fully operational in six years.
