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"Zhang Yimou's First Meta-Universe Entrepreneurship"
The source of this article is "Xiaguang Agency" (ID: Globalinsights), which is reprinted by Tencent Ventures with permission.
Author/Han Xia
Editor/Magi
Since the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the schedule is nearing its end. With the fierce progress of the event, the "black technology" at the Winter Olympics has also aroused heated discussion from many parties. It can be said that this Winter Olympics is not only a "sports event", but also a "scientific and technological feast".
It is reported that just to create the opening ceremony, the general director Zhang Yimou and the main creative team comprehensively used artificial intelligence, 5G, AR, naked-eye 3D, digital twins and other "black technology". In addition to the opening ceremony, the "black technology" figure of the Winter Olympics is everywhere.
Such a high-tech Winter Olympics has made people interested in the companies behind the technology support. According to the incomplete statistics of Xiaguang She, there are more than 50 Chinese technology companies participating in the Winter Olympics, mainly involving core links such as venue construction, technical support, and security services.
Among the many companies, there is one that has an extraordinary relationship with Zhang Yimou, but few people pay attention. The company, named Beijing Danghong Qitian International Culture and Technology Development Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Danghong Qitian"), is also regarded as a "meta-universe" company.
Various VR equipment in the athletes' entertainment and fitness center of this Winter Olympic Games, such as VR e-sports products, XR ski simulators, and "Jiaolong" manned deep-sea simulation experience devices, are provided by the popular Qi Tian.
Zhang Yimou is also laying out the metacosm? What other "meta-universe companies" are there at this Winter Olympics?
1
Born before the "First Year of the Metacosm"
2021 is regarded as the "first year of the meta-universe", this year, the meta-universe from concept to popular, triggering the popularity of well-known enterprises and capital markets at home and abroad.
First, foreign social giant Facebook changed its name to Meta to enter the meta-universe, and then ByteDance acquired the VR hardware company Pico, and then Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent and other Internet giants followed up one after another to lay out and invest in the meta-universe track.
Although there is currently no uniform definition of the metacosm, in many descriptions, VR/AR technology is an important element of the metacosm and is seen as a key gateway to the metacosm. Tan Ping, head of the XR laboratory of Ali Damo Academy, once said: "The metacosm is the entire Internet on AR and VR glasses. ”
When the popular Qi Tian was an early start-up company in the VR/AR track layout. According to the official website, founded in 2015, Qitian is a cultural technology company that integrates "XR content production + vehicle research and development + digital operation overall solution and product landing" and is committed to creating immersive experiences.
XR is extended reality, is a combination of VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), MR (mixed reality). Through wearables and computer technology, XR can bring audiences a combination of real and virtual, human-computer interaction environment.
It is worth mentioning that in the list of founding shareholders of the popular QiTian, the shadow of director Zhang Yimou also appeared. Tianyan's investigation shows that Zhang Yimou is the fifth largest shareholder of the popular Qitian, with a shareholding ratio of 5.13%. The statement on the official website of the popular Qitian is that Zhang Yimou is the co-founder and artistic director of the company.
The business of the popular Qitian is mainly based on offline XR venues. Up to now, The popular Qitian has successfully landed offline XR theme parks in 12 cities across the country, including Beijing Shougang "No. 1 blast furnace" SoReal 5G XR super body space, Shanghai Disney town SoReal 5G XR super body space, etc.
Beijing Shougang "No. 1 blast furnace" SoReal 5G XR superbody space
The intersection of the popular Qi Tian and the Winter Olympics originated three years ago. In 2019, Qitian signed a memorandum of strategic cooperation with Intel to jointly develop 5G-based VR/AR content solutions for the Tokyo Olympic Games, the Beijing Winter Olympics and the Paris Olympic Games to provide VR/AR-based training and experience for Olympic athletes.
At this year's Beijing Winter Olympics, Qi Tian brought his own meta-universe technology and products, that is, 5G+XR intelligent sports products, to the athletes' entertainment and fitness center in the Winter Olympic Village.
These products mainly involve intelligent sports, Chinese aerospace, China's deep diving fields, such as: XR skiing, "Shenzhou" VR spacecraft simulator, "Jiaolong" manned deep-sea simulation experiencer, VR e-sports and so on.
When IOC President Bach visited the Olympic Village, he experienced a "Shenzhou" VR spacecraft simulator. American curler Christopher also posted a video on social media to share his experience of experiencing VR products.
In the video, Christopher walks into the game room of the Winter Olympic Village, and when he sees the game equipment full of technology, he can't help but exclaim "Oh my God, wow! Subsequently, Christopher pulled his teammates together to experience the "Jiaolong" deep diving simulator and watch the dazzling underwater scenery through VR glasses.
The "Jiaolong" manned deep-sea simulation experiencer
It is not difficult to see that in the exploration and commercialization of XR (VR) technology, the popular QiTian has a relatively deep precipitation.
Nowadays, the meta-universe wave has swept the world, because of the accumulation of XR (VR) technology, whether it is its own publicity or external evaluation, the current popular Qi Tian is regarded as a "meta-universe company".
2
Zhang Yimou's first meta-universe entrepreneurship
Zhang Yimou's participation in the creation of this "meta-universe company" is also an interesting story. He once mentioned that when the two founders of the company founded him, because the three people had the same idea, they joined and co-founded the company.
And these two founders are Qi Xiao, the founder and chairman of the popular Qi Tian, and another co-founder, Wang Lei. If we want to talk about the relationship between the three people, we have to go back to the earlier 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
As we all know, Zhang Yimou was the general director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and Qi Xiao was the producer of the opening ceremony program "Picture Scroll", so the two met.
2008 Beijing Olympic Games Opening Ceremony Program "Picture Scroll"
Wang Lei, another co-founder of the company, was the general manager of the film and television post-production company "Tiangong Brilliant", and led the post-production of films such as "Dragon Hunting Tips" and "Dragon Gate Flying Armor". Because of the knowledge of film and television production, Wang Lei once took the initiative to learn from Zhang Yimou.
At the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, the intersection and integration of color and light and shadow brought a good immersive experience to the audience, and also gave Qi Xiao and Wang Lei a great touch, so the two came up with the idea of wanting to be a "Universal Studios in the VR field".
In 2008, Qi Xiao and Wang Lei tried to build a 360° custom theater at Fisherman's Wharf in Macau. But because the theater's location was reclaimed from the sea and could not withstand dozens of tons of stage machinery, the nearly formed project was shelved.
It wasn't until the launch of the Oculus Rift DK1 (VR Headset) crowdfunding edition that the two realized that this might be a great opportunity to miniaturize Universal Studios.
In 2014, the VR concept set off the first wave of enthusiasm in the world. Qi Xiao and Wang Lei began a two-year global travel experience. They often travel to Japan, the United States and European countries for technical exchanges, and learn about a large number of VR technologies and VR commercial operation models.
In the process of communication, the two gradually clarified the future entrepreneurial direction - to do VR theme park. During this period, the two partners approached Zhang Yimou and proposed the idea of applying virtual reality technology to the field of film and television entertainment.
After some exchanges, Qi Xiao and Wang Lei found that Zhang Yimou was not only interested in VR, but also had profound insights.
Zhang Yimou once said at a public event: "I am a director who is very sensitive to film vision and new technologies, and I have heard about VR technology. But I always felt that this was a technology that only Hollywood had, and I didn't expect that someone in China had already made it, so when I received the invitation, I hit it off. ”
In 2015, Zhang Yimou participated in the creation of the popular Qi Tian as a co-founder and served as the artistic director, which was also the first time that Zhang Yimou invested and joined a company as a founder.
Zhang Yimou and Qi Xiao for a group photo
As an artistic director, Zhang Yimou has also put forward creative ideas for films. For example, the popular Qi Tian once used the tunnel in Zhang Yimou's movie "The Great Wall" as the design background to plan a film conference that integrated VR technology. When the audience puts on the "headset", they can see and touch the scenes in the movie.
Zhang Yimou himself said that "in the future, he may try to consider shooting a virtual reality movie." However, so far, Zhang Yimou's VR movie has not yet come out, but the popular Qi Tian has achieved rapid development and attracted the favor of capital.
Since its establishment in 2015, The popular Qitian has completed 6 rounds of financing, including many star investment institutions such as Lenovo Venture Capital, Intel, and Xiaomi Zhan Investment. The investment of Xiaomi War Investment is also regarded as an important move for Xiaomi to enter the meta-universe.
The latest phase of financing happened just a few days ago. On February 12, the 8th day of the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, When Red Qitian announced the completion of the B+ round of financing, investors including Lacala and BlueFocus as the cornerstone investors to set up blueprint Haixing Fund.
Qi Xiao said that this round of financing will be used to open up production and consumption scenarios in the meta-universe era, explore the integration of online virtual space and offline physical space, and promote the application expansion and commercialization of XR experience in key industries.
3
The metacosmic heat of the Winter Olympics
The "Meta-Universe Company" participating in the Beijing Winter Olympics is not only popular Qi Tian.
As the new top stream of the Winter Olympics, "ice piers" have become popular around the world, online and offline "one pier is difficult to find", and related concept stocks are highly sought after.
Among them, Yuanlong Yatu, as the only listed company in A-share that produces ice piers and snow melting plush toys, has continuously harvested 5 up and down boards since the opening of the Year of the Tiger. As of the close of trading on February 16, its total market value has reached 6.078 billion, and its market value has increased by about 2 billion yuan.
But what few people know is that Yuanlong Yatu, who is mainly engaged in gifts and gifts, has also entered the meta-universe field.
On December 27 last year, Yuen Long Yatu established a wholly-owned subsidiary, "Yuen Long Universe Digital Technology Shanghai Co., Ltd." (hereinafter referred to as "Yuen Long Universe"). Three days later, Yuanlong Yatu confirmed to the outside world that it has become a member of the Meta-Universe Industry Committee of the China Mobile Communications Federation and is actively exploring the commercialization path of Meta-Universe in the field of gifts.
After clarifying the direction, Yuanlong Yatu's movement speed was also very fast. On January 4 this year, Yuanlong Universe and digital painting artist Liu Ming released an NFT digital collection called "Divine Beasts and Five Constants". It is said to be a test of the waters that opens up online and offline, and organically combines the NFT digital collection with wuliangye cultural wine.
The introduction of the trading platform shows that the purchase of digital collections will have the opportunity to obtain Wuliangye Cultural Wine.
The digital collection of the Yuan Long Universe
In addition to digital collections, virtual humans, one of the important application areas of the metaverse, have also attracted much attention. During this Winter Olympics, the virtual people also walked to the front of the stage.
On February 2, at the opening ceremony of the "Meet in Beijing" Olympic Cultural Festival held in Beijing, the virtual person "Luo Tianyi" took the stage and received attention with a song "Time to shine", which is also the first Chinese virtual singer to appear on the Olympic stage.
On February 4, CCTV News and Baidu Intelligent Cloud jointly created the first AI sign language anchor to start the winter Olympic games broadcast journey. This virtual person anchor, dressed in a white suit skirt, a refreshing and capable short hair, let many netizens sigh: "Full of screen intimacy, live broadcast effect is full." ”
In addition to the AI sign language anchor, the meteorological service virtual person "Feng Xiaoshu" also broadcast the meteorological index in real time for contestants and viewers in the "China Weather" program.
It is understood that Feng Xiaoshu is jointly created by the China Meteorological Administration and Microsoft's Xiaoice company. Xiaoice company took Feng Shu, the host of the China Meteorological Channel, as the prototype and used the digital twin virtual person technology to create a virtual weather host "Feng Xiaoshu" who can imitate Feng Shu's voice, intonation and lip type.
As early as 10 days before the opening of the Winter Olympics, "Feng Xiaoshu" had already "taken up his post with a certificate", and even the Buddha-figure was also on the social platform to introduce his little AI brother.
Virtual Weather Host "Feng Xiaoshu"
Far Mobilization also has its own avatar. For example, Gu Ailing, who swept the screen across the network, and his "digital twin" Meet GU, recorded a program in Migu's studio the day before Gu Ailing won the gold medal in the freestyle ski jump at the Winter Olympics.
Meet GU is the first sports digital talent launched by China Mobile Migu Video. According to the plan, during the Olympic Games, she will complete the ski event commentary, broadcast and virtual interaction of scene e-commerce in Migu's studio.
In addition to Gu Ailing, the virtual human figures of Chinese ice and snow sports athletes such as Ren Ziwei, Xu Mengtao, Sui Wenjing, and Han Cong have also appeared in various activities.
Behind the athletes winning the award, the "virtual person coach" is also indispensable. For example, Xu Mengtao, the gold medalist of the women's aerial skills in freestyle skiing, has a handsome coach named "Guan jun" behind him.
Coach Guan Jun
"Guanjun" is an artificial intelligence refereeing and coaching system developed by Xiaoice Company. Prior to that, he had been secretly involved in the auxiliary training of the Aerial Skills Project for nearly three years.
He has established an exclusive sports file for each member of the China Freestyle Ski Women's Aerial Skills Team, traced the details of each jump through image recognition and real-time data analysis, provided guidance for far-reaching mobilization and coaches, and assisted in formulating scientific training plans.
From the field to the field, the virtual person has penetrated into many links of the Winter Olympic Games, which can be said to be a concentrated display of the development results of the domestic virtual person industry in recent years.
The virtual people who are brought on fire by the metacosm have also become the darlings of capital. Relevant data show that in 2021, there will be more than 60,000 new virtual person-related enterprises in China. Less than a month after the beginning of 2022, the number of financing in the virtual person field has approached 100, and the amount of financing has reached 411 million yuan.
In addition to the XR (VR) technology, digital collections, virtual people, etc. mentioned above, the artificial intelligence, naked-eye 3D, 5G and other technologies mentioned at the beginning of the article are important factors to promote the development of the metaverse. The companies behind them, such as Megvii Technology and Zhouming Technology, are also strong.
On the whole, the Winter Olympics are not so much a "muscle" display of various meta-universe companies, but rather a test of the strength of these technology companies. After experiencing the examination school of this Winter Olympics, the "Meta-Universe Company" may develop in a more benign and healthy direction.
Resources:
[1] "XR Head Enterprise Popular Qi Tian Received Investment from Lacala and BlueFocus to Promote Metacosmic Related Business Development", 36Kr
[2] "Zhang Yimou's First Meta Universe Entrepreneurship, Xiaomi Invested", the investment community
[3] "This Winter Olympics, the virtual human content is a little high", the light cone intelligence
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