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Text | MetaPost
Really going to fight? High-end business warfare is often unpretentious. Recently, Musk and Zuckerberg have become more and more intense, and netizens are also having fun. Two top rich people hand-to-hand combat? It's exciting to think about! Subsequently, Lao Ma's X (formerly Twitter) and Xiaoza's Threads (X competitor) also gained a lot of attention. Musk officially announced that the octagonal cage fight agreed upon by the two will be broadcast live on the X platform, and Zuckerberg responded: "Shouldn't you use a more reliable platform?" ”。
At the same time, Meta is actively deepening its partnership with UFC, the world's top and largest professional mixed martial arts event, creating a special UFC-themed experience on the metaverse social VR platform Horizon Worlds, where users will be able to watch 4K, 180-degree virtual octagonal cage arenas. As soon as you say anything to me, there will be attention and discussion. Domestic giants have been low-key recently, not so grasping the horse "tearing each other", but also secretly competing, ByteDance dialogue AI product Grace opened testing, Taobao's newly launched AI decoration product "really can be made", Tencent's self-developed "mixed element large model" entered the application internal testing stage, Xiaomi AI large model MiLM-6B exposed...
"In the past year, China's metaverse development has become more pragmatic." Hu Run, chairman and chief research officer of Hurun Report, said. Pragmatic is one of the labels of China's private enterprises. On July 20, Hurun Research Institute released the "2023 Hurun China Metaverse Potential Enterprise List" in Guangzhou, listing the top 200 Chinese enterprises with the most development potential in the metaverse field.
On the list are "old acquaintances" Alibaba, Huawei, Netease, Tencent, Baidu, as well as "new faces" Mihayou and United Imaging Medical. These companies may become the mainstay of China's metaverse industry, and paying attention to their development history will help us better understand the development trajectory of the industry.
01 Two demolition shooting
First Demolition: "Three-stage Theory"
We mentioned that the 2022 Gartner technology maturity curve concluded that "metaverse technology is still in the innovation trigger, and it will take at least 10 years to enter a mature stable period". This graph is divided into 5 stages: technology germination, expectation expansion, bubble bursting trough, steady climb recovery, and production maturity, with a total of 25 technologies listed, and the metaverse is just one of them.
Regarding the development stage of the metaverse itself, industry experts have different opinions, and some experts in the industry currently have a similar "three-stage theory" on the development of the metaverse. As we mentioned earlier, there are three stages in the evolution of the metaverse development pattern - the first stage is the emergence of multiple independent virtual platforms; The second stage is the establishment of the metaverse economic system; The third stage is the aggregation of multiple independent virtual platforms to form a true metaverse.
Zang Zhipeng, a tenured professor at the Department of Cultural Industry of Tongji University and executive deputy director and executive deputy secretary-general of the Cultural Metaverse Professional Committee of the China Cultural Industry Association, divided the development of the metaverse into three stages: 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 in 2021, which can also be called the primary, intermediate and advanced stages. Among them, stage 1.0 is the stage of productivity change, 2.0 is the stage of change of production relations, and stage 3.0 is the stage of reshaping the new global governance pattern, which will also represent the true maturity of the metaverse.
CCID Consulting also published a three-stage theory of the development of the "meta-universe" in 2022, that is, stage 1, deconstructing industry needs and consolidating the underlying foundation; The second stage is to reshape application scenarios and expand emerging models; The third stage is to subvert the theoretical framework and change the production and lifestyle.
In addition, the book "Meta-Universe, Road to Infinite Games" jointly published by Chinese science fiction writer Chang Wei and scientist Liu Qiushan, also proposed a "three-stage" theory in the development of the meta-universe, namely digital twin, digital native and digital immortality, which is also the process of human digital migration.
At present, the metaverse industry is still in the initial stage of development, which is a general consensus.
The second demolition: the development of the industrial chain
If we disassemble the metaverse-related industrial chain according to the three layers of infrastructure layer, core layer and application layer, its development status will be more concrete. First, look at the infrastructure layer, including communication network infrastructure and computing power infrastructure, mainly responsible for real-time data transmission and distribution, storage computing and processing, mining and analysis decision-making. Then to the core layer, divided into hardware devices and software systems two parts, the former contains various terminals to access the meta-universe and the components required for these hardware, of which VR/AR/MR equipment is the main representative, the world's first MR headset has been launched in June this year, that is, Apple's Vision Pro; The latter refers to the technical tools required for the generation of metaverse virtual worlds, including operating systems, development engines, digital twin technologies, rendering technologies, open interfaces, virtual currencies, etc.
Finally, the application layer, divided into To C end (consumer-oriented) and To B end (enterprise-oriented) two parts, the former application scenarios mainly include games, social, consumption, media, etc., the latter application scenarios such as industrial production, virtual office, construction real estate, medical, etc., the meta-universe application platform that has been initially landed such as Meta's "Horizon Worlds", Baidu's "Xi Long" and so on.
Each key link needs the support of core technology, and the technological development process can largely represent the development process of the industry. Network computing technology represented by 5G and cloud computing, virtual reality technology represented by VR/AR, and blockchain technology required to build virtual currencies and economic systems are all core technologies indispensable for building the metaverse.
5G and cloud computing provide computing power network guarantee for the interconnection of massive elements in the metaverse, and the mainland is relatively leading in this field.
Interactive technology represented by VR/AR is the key to achieving immersive experience in the metaverse, and the VR industry ecology has been basically completed. The hardware performance of domestic mainstream VR equipment has been benchmarked with overseas, but there is still much room for development in terms of content ecology. Whether at home or abroad, at present, mainstream VR devices still have room for further upgrades in terms of screen resolution, field of view, weight, portability, etc., and the audience is relatively limited to young groups and commercial fields, and the popularization of hardware scale still needs to wait.
Blockchain technology can help the metaverse establish an independent economic system and achieve decentralized governance, and based on blockchain, the metaverse era can give everyone digital rights related to the identity system, or support current unsolvable problems such as privacy protection.
If from the perspective of application scenarios, the trend of diversified development is obvious, and there are certain results in both To C and To B, which will be analyzed in detail below. Although it is still too early to talk about when to fully enter the "metaverse", benefiting from the vigorous development of the digital economy, the exploration of the metaverse will gradually become clear and substantial, and related industries will gradually become large-scale.
02 Hundred boats compete for the current
Can it still attract gold?
In the past few years, the "metaverse" can be regarded as the "sweet potato" of the capital market. According to the "2022 Global Metaverse Investment and Financing Report" by CaiLian News Venture Capital and IT Orange, in 2022 alone, a total of 704 financings occurred in the global metaverse industry, with a total amount of 86.867 billion yuan, of which 125 in China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) with a total financing of 12.782 billion yuan. And what about 2023? Although the semi-annual report on metaverse financing worldwide has not yet been released, according to the latest report by data collection and analysis company DappRadar, from the beginning of 2023 to the end of June, the total financing of Web3-based metaverse projects was about $707 million, less than 10% of the whole of 2022, and there seem to be signs of cold or cold.
Figure | Comparison of Web3 metaverse project financing in the first half of 2021-2023, source: DappRadar
Domestic capital markets are a different story. According to the latest research report released by Sina VR and Qichacha Big Data Research Institute, in the first half of 2023, there were a total of 221 domestic metaverse investment and financing events, an increase of 194% over the same period in 2022; The total disclosed metaverse investment and financing reached RMB15.86 billion, an increase of 213% over the same period in 2022. The half-year financing amount has exceeded the total amount of last year, and the "metaverse" is still strong in China.
Which side is the strongest in the ability to absorb gold?
From the perspective of the distribution of metaverse investment and financing tracks, the fields involved in investment and financing in the domestic metaverse market mainly include four major sectors: hardware, software, infrastructure, and scenario applications. Judging from the investment and financing data in the first half of 2023, artificial intelligence can be regarded as the hottest track in the pan-metaverse field. According to statistics, from January to June 2023, there were a total of 74 investment and financing events in the AI track, accounting for 33.4% of the total investment and financing in the metaverse field in the first half of the year; The total investment and financing was 9.02 billion yuan, accounting for 57% of the total investment and financing in the metaverse field in the first half of the year. Among them, the top three AI companies in terms of financing amount are: Yuntian Lifei, 3.583 billion yuan; Light-year away, about 2.065 billion yuan; Yunzhisheng, more than 700 million yuan. The financing amount of AI enterprises accounted for half of the metaverse investment and financing in the first half of 2023, and it is a proper gold-absorbing beast.
Source: Sina VR & Enterprise Investigation
The temple is eyeing more than three major tracks
In the last issue, we also mentioned that there are three major focuses frequently mentioned in metaverse policies: industrial metaverse, virtual digital humans, and metaverse IP. But the top layer is eyeing much more than these three tracks. Virtual reality, XR hardware, and digital twins are also key areas of support for central policy.
Virtual reality: As a key application of the meta-universe, virtual reality has always been an area that the central government focuses on, and the central policy not only emphasizes the role of virtual reality technical tools, but also emphasizes the development of the virtual reality industry itself. Relevant special policies include the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of Virtual Reality Industry Exhibition" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in December 2018, and the "Action Plan for the Integrated Development of Virtual Reality and Industry Applications (2022-2026)" jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State Administration of Radio and Television, and the State General Administration of Sports in November 2022.
XR hardware: XR hardware, as the core carrier of the metaverse, is also one of the key directions of the central government. A number of policies mention support for XR hardware manufacturing, and the content of policy support mainly includes the research and development of related equipment materials and the promotion and improvement of relevant supply chains. For example, the modernization of the relevant industrial chain in basic electronic components proposed in the Action Plan for the Development of Basic Electronic Components Industry (2021-2023) issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in January 2021 can provide the necessary hardware foundation for the development and realization of the metaverse.
Digital twins: Digital twins are another key area for metaverse applications, and policies at the central level mainly support the research and development of digital twin technology and the application of digital twin technology in various fields. The National 14th Five-Year Plan released in March 2021 clearly states that "exploring the construction of digital twin cities" is clear. Shenzhen also took the lead in releasing the Shenzhen Digital Twin Pioneer City Construction Action Plan (2023) last month.
See what the industry has to say
There is also a certain foundation for the track research of the metaverse in the industry. The research group of China Telecom Research Institute wrote an article in the 6th issue of China Economic Report in 2022, analyzing the relevant subdivision tracks of the metaverse industry, and the article believes that the subdivision of the metaverse industry roughly includes the new information infrastructure of the metaverse, the construction and content of the virtual world, the virtual digital human and the metaverse value system.
Also in 2022, Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Financial Research Center of China Institute for Financial Research of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Shanghai Shenyin Wanguo Securities Research Institute jointly released "Metaverse Research: Technology, Application and Economic Paradigm". The report comprehensively sorts out and analyzes the new track of the metaverse and metaverse economy from four aspects: the definition and connotation of the metaverse and metaverse economy, core technologies, application scenarios and overseas metaverse economic paradigms. This report proposes six new tracks for the metaverse economy: digital collections, games, virtual humans, cultural tourism metaverse, medical metaverse, and industrial metaverse. The above are also popular tracks that have received widespread attention in the metaverse field.
03 Big conjecture
Narrow & broad
The application scenarios of the metaverse are divided into narrow and broad senses. The narrow metaverse, mainly defined from the immersive experience, is the well-known 3D version of the virtual world, which is better to implement from the technical level. The metaverse in a broad sense is more of a category of digital economy, covering multi-scenario applications of the Internet of Things, including social governance, industry applications and consumption.
In the field of social governance, mainly including smart city, smart transportation, smart energy, smart logistics, public health, blockchain-enabled real economy, supply chain finance, and digital government.
Industry application fields, including smart agriculture, smart environmental protection, smart cultural tourism, smart design, cloud education, smart manufacturing, etc.: smart manufacturing can be further subdivided into: virtual field service, enterprise collaboration and process compliance inspection.
Consumer fields, including smart home, smart health, smart wear, smart terminals, etc.
While the app solicitation is in progress
At present, the policy focuses on basically metaverse application scenarios in a broad sense. In July, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other five departments collected and selected a number of pioneer application cases with advanced technology, remarkable results, and replication and promotion from ten major subdivisions for key application scenarios of virtual reality (including augmented reality and mixed reality). Including: industrial production, cultural tourism, integrated media, education and training, sports and health, business and creativity, performing arts and entertainment, safety and emergency response, disability assistance, smart city.
A few days ago, Shenzhen also launched the 2023 virtual reality pioneer application case collection work. The main solicitation direction is consistent with that of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Shanghai has launched the "unveiling" of major metaverse application scenarios for two consecutive years. The first batch of demand lists for major metaverse application scenarios announced in January 2023 has a total of 20 demand projects, covering seven fields: business operations, classroom education, cultural tourism, brand entertainment, intelligent manufacturing, medical and health, and digital cities.
Which mountains are gathered in the rivers and lakes?
As mentioned earlier, the application scenarios of the metaverse can be divided into two aspects: To C and To B, and in these two aspects, the "rivers and mountains" laid by related enterprises have begun to take shape. From the To C end, games are the first stop for the landing of the meta-universe, and are gradually exploring social, consumer, media and other fields. As a virtual electronic application in the original Internet era, games have natural adaptability with the concept of the meta-universe, and the initial landing of the concept of the meta-universe has been realized. In works such as "Ready Player One" and "Cyberpunk 2077", "games" have also become the main carrier of the meta-universe many times. Domestic enterprises that deploy metaverse games include Tencent, Netease, Mihayou, Lilith, Baotong Technology, Tomcat, Zhongqingbao, Giant Network, XD Electric Soul Network, Perfect World, 37 Interactive Entertainment, Century Huatong, etc.
Mihayou launched the metaverse brand HoYoverse as early as February 2022, and the cloud game "Cloud Genshin" developed by Mihayou also entered the top 10 best-selling games in the Apple Store in September 2022. In addition, To C applications such as social, consumer, and media are also actively explored. For example, in early 2021, Soul App proposed to build a "social metaverse" for the first time in the industry; The domestic social consumption metaverse "Five Cats Universe" was launched in December 2022, creating a digital living space for Gen Z people running parallel to the real world. The media field is gradually occupied by various forms of AI anchors, such as CCTV's AI sign language anchors "Lingyu" and "AI Crown".
From the To B side, the integration of the metaverse with industry and medical care is actively advancing, and the application of office, exhibition, education and other fields has also yielded results. The combination of virtual and real and human-computer interaction of the metaverse will theoretically effectively empower industrial production, realize remote collaborative development and simulation production, and drive production to reduce costs and increase efficiency. In addition to empowering the manufacturing industry, virtual office, exhibitions and other applications have also landed, such as Meta's metaverse office social platform Horizon Workrooms, which allows employees to wear VR devices into virtual conference rooms to achieve face-to-face communication. Recently, BYD and AI and metaverse company MeetKai jointly launched the "BYD World BYD Metaverse" virtual showroom to provide online immersive brand and product interactive experience for customers in the Americas.
A picture of the future
In the future, with the continuous improvement of metaverse technology and industry maturity, its application scope will gradually expand and deepen. How will it seep into every aspect of our lives? Let's take a big guess about the application scenario.
Metaverse Healthcare: Metaverse has a wide range of application possibilities in the field of smart healthcare, and in the future, it will greatly alleviate and solve the prominent contradiction of "mismatch between medical resources and medical needs". At present, AI drug research and development, medical robots, AI doctors, etc. have gradually landed. In the future, the metaverse will have the potential to reconstruct the healthcare ecosystem – building a connection between the real and the virtual around the patient experience, and ultimately realizing the vision of universal health in the health metaverse.
Metaverse office: The pandemic has made many people accustomed to remote work, but in the metaverse world, there is still more room for imagination in remote work. Meta uses office software HorizonWorkrooms and VR devices to allow users to bring their desks, computers and keyboards into the virtual world. In the future, with the development of technology, everyone will enter the virtual office with a virtual identity, and can synchronize the movements, expressions, and tones of real people, greatly improving communication efficiency.
Metaverse cultural creativity: At present, many cases of metaverse + cultural tourism have come out, such as Luoyang Longmen Grottoes and Shenzhen Nantou Ancient City; Metaverse cultural and creative products such as digital collections and AR intelligent cultural and creative products are also gradually emerging, such as smart notes, smart calligraphy, and AR bookmarks launched by Houshan Guochuang, which are cultural and creative products that integrate national chao culture with digital technology. And these are also preliminary exploration stages. The metaverse will dramatically increase human creativity, both in technology and culture. Cultural and creative products in the metaverse world will no longer be limited to product forms, and everyone will likely become creators and participate in them.
Four kinds of Chinese herbal medicine graphics, such as perilla, acid pulp, yellow artemisia and Zong Yin, are selected from the Chinese medical classic "Compendium of Materia Medica" and combined with AR technical means, accompanied by the sound of traditional Chinese musical instruments, vividly and richly display the growth process of each Chinese herbal medicine, and displayed in the form of three-dimensional animation
04 Know the pattern
Finally, let's take a glimpse of the regional industrial layout and industry competition pattern through several lists.
City list
"China City Metaverse List" - The top 10 cities jointly released by the Metaverse Working Committee of the China Civil Association, Surun Big Data Research Institute, MetaPost, Nanjing Zhilun Digital Research Think Tank, China Communications Industry Association Integration Committee of Informatization and Informatization, Blockchain Professional Committee of China Market Information Investigation Industry Association, SXR Science and Technology Think Tank and other institutions are: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Haikou, Wuxi, Qingdao, Suzhou.
Figure | March 31, 2023 "China City Metaverse List"
Corporate list
"2023 Hurun China Metaverse Potential Enterprise List"
- Hurun Research Institute
- Alibaba and Huawei awarded "Top 2 with the Most Potential"
- NetEase, Tencent, Baidu entered the "Top 5 with the most potential"
- China Mobile, China Telecom, JD.com, iFLYTEK, and Lenovo entered the "Top 10 with the Most Potential"
- There are 57 new companies on the list, represented by HTC, Mihayou and United Imaging Medical
Among the five major industries of the metaverse, the underlying technology category has the most listed companies, with 89, represented by Inspur Information and Allwinner Technology; 65 ecological applications, represented by Bilibili and Mango Supermedia; 22 terminal industries, represented by Lenovo and Goertek; 15 platform technology companies, represented by NetEase and Baidu; There are 9 network technology companies, represented by China Mobile and China Telecom
The largest number of companies with the main business of media and entertainment is 33; followed by software and data service companies, with 31; Again consumer electronics and electronic component companies, with 27 and 26 respectively; Then there are semiconductor, artificial intelligence and telecommunications companies, with 20, 18 and 15 respectively
Enterprises headquartered in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen account for nearly 50% of the total; Beijing-based companies remain the most, with 45; followed by Shanghai, with 33; Shenzhen third, 21; Guangzhou rose one place to fourth, with 15, including 3 in Nansha District; Hangzhou fifth, 13. There are 50 in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, accounting for 25% of the country
Figure | July 20, 2023 "2023 Hurun China Metaverse Potential Enterprise List"
Digital Human IP List
"China Digital Human TOP100" - The top ten virtual digital humans ranked by China Business Industry Research Institute & Greater Bay Area Digital Human Industry Alliance Mainland Comprehensive Index are: Luo Tianyi, Ha Chan, Aijia, MeetGu, Time Xiaoni, CCTV AI Sign Language Anchor, Ling, Xijiajia, Mei Shutian, You Zixi. The top 10 digital human enterprises in China are: Baidu, Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba, China Mobile, Netease, Douyin, Kuaishou, OPPO, Transsion Holdings.
Figure | April 7, 2023 "China Digital Human TOP100"
The first three issues of MLC × MetaPost "The Yuan of Everything" series of production, research and industry reviews have been fully released. From three different dimensions, we have drawn a general outline of the current "meta-universe" for you.