Beijing announces two-year plan for Metaverse development

On Tuesday, Beijing's city government released its plans aimed at the innovation and development of the metaverse. The project is supposed to roll out over the next two years (2022-2024) and requires all districts to adhere to the latest Web3 innovation plan.

According to the plan, "metaverse is a new generation of information technology integration and innovation that drives the development of the Internet towards Web3.0." It also states that its purpose includes promoting the development of metaverse-related industries and turning Beijing into a benchmark city for the digital economy.

The announced plan suggested that individual districts build and promote the use of technological infrastructure in various fields such as education and tourism. The initiative also discussed using visualization and GIS (Geographic Information System) to build a visual urban space digital platform and appropriately advance digital native intelligent infrastructure layout.

A translated excerpt from the official plan document reads, '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.'

The plan said municipalities would gather the required resources for metaverse innovations and organise fundamental technical research on the underlying technologies of the research.

While the Chinese government has been mostly hostile to the idea of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens, it seems more accepting of the Metaverse and its related technologies.

In the past few months, Chinese cities have announced multi-year plans to encourage adopting and implementing metaverse technology in society – Beijing is the second city to do so after Shanghai.

Despite the government's interest in the Web3 virtual environment technology, it hasn't exactly been supportive of private firms trying to get into the sector.

Still, the government's involvement with the Metaverse seems to precede a nationwide adoption of the technology.

Photo: Wikipedia