In the future, there may be machine assistants to efficiently organize personal lives

Zhang Ping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, mentioned in his speech that with the deep integration of the metaverse and the digital economy, enterprises can obtain production information in real time to regulate production. Photo courtesy of the organizer

Thirty years ago, scientist Qian Xuesen gave virtual reality (VR) technology a "Chinese flavor" name - Lingjing, saying that it will expand the perception of the human brain and trigger a series of world-shaking changes. At that time, although Qian Xuesen did not clarify the definition of "spiritual realm", some of his lofty ideas coincided with today's concept of the metaverse and continued to inspire later researchers.

From May 25 to 30, the 2023 Zhongguancun Forum was held in Beijing. On the morning of May 27, at the parallel forum "Internet 3.0: Future Internet Industry Development" of the 2023 Zhongguancun Forum hosted by the Beijing Association for Science and Technology, Zhang Ping, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, delivered a speech with the theme of "Metaverse Problems and Thinking on Development Countermeasures".

He further elaborated on "spiritual realm", saying that "spirit" is an intelligent body that understands human intentions, adapts, transforms and even creates the environment, and "realm" is the process of virtual digitization of the physical world, and human-machine objects constitute a network ecological space.

Spiritual realms are ubiquitous. Zhang Ping proposed to build a "licensed Web 3.0" to develop China's independent metaverse. He believes that the foundation of the Chinese version of Web 3.0 is the integration of sensing, communication, computing and control, which supports accurate perception of ubiquitous environments, efficient information transmission, collaborative high-speed computing, security, trustworthiness, and management, and supports typical scenarios such as digital health care and virtual testing.

A

The metaverse will drive the digital economy to a new stage

In recent years, with the development of supporting technologies such as blockchain, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, the metaverse has been given new features such as full interconnection, permanent preservation, panoramic reproduction, ubiquitous access, and high immersion, which also makes people have more imagination about the future of the metaverse. Some argue that the metaverse will become the next generation of the internet.

At the forum, Zhang Ping, who has long been committed to mobile communication theoretical research and technological innovation, shared his thoughts on the development of the metaverse.

In Zhang Ping's view, the metaverse is essentially a virtual socio-economic system, which will open up a new category of digital economy. From the perspective of economic form, the current economy has grown from scale economy to scope economy, the Internet has emerged, and there are new increments - data has become a new factor of production, and ICT (information and communication technology) technology is the engine driving the digital economy. In the future, when the distributed economy is deeply integrated, digital capital and virtual and real co-creation are deeply integrated, and the metaverse will promote the digital economy to a new stage.

On January 12, 2022, the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy identified seven key industries in the digital economy, including cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, industrial Internet, blockchain, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality. Zhang Ping noted that during the National Two Sessions this year, the tone was set that the future development model of the mainland metaverse is "virtual and real integration", "promoting reality with virtuality" and "strengthening reality with virtual reality".

At the local level, at least 17 provinces and cities across the country have responded positively, issuing a total of 47 metaverse-related policies and reports at the provincial and municipal levels, clearly using the "metaverse + industry" model to gather digital production factors, activate data potential, build a digital twin space, and deeply integrate the whole scene of the industry with the real economy.

On the same day of the forum, the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park Management Committee released the "Beijing Internet 3.0 Innovation and Development White Paper (2023)" to the public, showing that Internet 3.0 is the aggregator of modern science and technology, and is an inevitable trend in the development of the future Internet industry, with a three-dimensional space with high immersive interactive experience and virtual and real integration, and its scope includes a highly immersive sensory experience of virtual and real integration and an economic activity experience that connects virtual and real, covering the connotation of meta-universe and Web 3.0.

For the development trend of science and technology, Zhang Ping also has his own imagination. In an interview with Nandu and other media on the same day, Zhang Ping mentioned that in addition to the physical world in which he is now, there will be a virtual or digital world in the future, which will bring more imagination to people's life, work and entertainment.

B

Multi-scenario applications of the metaverse: AR shopping guides, smart cities, etc

In the forum speech, Zhang Ping mentioned the multi-scenario landing application of the metaverse. For example, in the cultural tourism scenario, the metaverse can strengthen the creative transformation and innovative development of cultural IP resources; In urban scenarios, the "city brain center" can be designed by carrying out global high-precision 3D city modeling. In educational scenarios, industry-wide digital mathematics platforms can be developed; As for consumption scenarios, the construction of digital scenarios such as "virtual try-on", AR (augmented reality) shopping guides, and interactive games can be strengthened.

The metaverse can bring much more than that, it can also empower business model innovation. Zhang Ping said that in the traditional Internet business model, the modules used by users are established, the channels are fragmented, and it is necessary to switch repeatedly in different applications, and as the number of users becomes increasingly saturated, the growth of the traditional model is becoming increasingly weak. However, in the metaverse space, users are not only consumers but also content producers, which greatly expands the market and social attributes of the metaverse.

In addition, in the context of the deep integration of the metaverse and the digital economy, enterprises can obtain production information in real time and can regulate production according to changes in the consumer market. This can not only ensure the minimization of resource consumption in the production process, but also avoid the waste of resources caused by market saturation, obtain the maximum output with the minimum input, and realize the green development of enterprises and industries.

dialogue

It is necessary to tap the power of science and technology for good

Nandu: What are the main difficulties in achieving a big breakthrough in the current metaverse?

Zhang Ping: The metaverse covers a wide range, but in general, it includes three technical difficulties: VR/AR, 5G/6G and computing power network. For example, VR/AR, we have to turn the past flat scene into three-dimensional, which has high requirements for rendering. In other words, delivering an immersive experience requires superb rendering technology.

At the same time, we now wear some VR/AR devices, and there will be vertigo and image shaking in the experience, which requires the development of 5G and 6G communication network technologies to solve problems such as delay and jitter.

With the development of 6G, the problem of computing power is becoming increasingly prominent. We see that some AI applications rely on a lot of computing power behind support, especially large models represented by ChatGPT, which are very complex. Then in the future, we need a computing power network, and it is built by strong artificial intelligence, which requires the study of new algorithms and new connection methods. In fact, these problems are all connected, and it is quite difficult to overcome difficulties and break through technology.

Nandu: If you look to the Internet in 20 years, how far do you think it will become?

Zhang Ping: Twenty years ago, we proposed to develop the information superhighway, and now we look back at some of the ideas we put forward at the beginning. Similarly, looking 20 years from now – I think a basic idea is to achieve the goal of "what can be done in the physical world, can be done online."

In the future, everyone may have a robot assistant like an agent, which can efficiently organize our work and life and make dynamic adjustments. This requires the "assistant" to have a certain perception of the physical world, and the ability to optimize decision-making, in order to provide more considerate services - such as after mastering personal health data, you can know whether there is something wrong with it, what kind of diet is more suitable for the next meal, and so on.

From this point of view, if the technology developed in the first 20 years is mainly based on the needs of the physical world, then the technological development in the last 20 years is more with a spiritual mission, paving the way for enriching people's spiritual life.

Nandu: Technology has two sides, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future development of science and technology?

Zhang Ping: I think the original intention of technological development must be for good. Of course, it will definitely be used by some people to do some bad things, but "the magic is one foot higher, the road is one foot high", in general, I am optimistic about the development of science and technology.

In addition to the physical world we are in now, we will also have a virtual or digital world in the future, and even have our own digital twin through rendering technology, which will bring more imagination to people's life, work and entertainment. I understand that the community of human destiny - not only the real body, but also the digital avatar, in order to make technology develop on a normal path, we need to tap the power of science and technology for good.

Written by: Nandu reporter Li Ling, Wang Chenchen, Huang Huishi, Song Chenghan, Jiang Xiaotian