What will we need to build the metaverse , that parallel and completely digital world that large corporations like Facebook or Microsoft are turning to develop?
This universe in the cloud based on augmented reality is going to require many resources, years and the collaboration of corporations from different sectors.
To create a new world is to develop the economy through goods and services that do not yet exist and, probably, to inspire the generation of new companies along the way.
Experts agree that it is unlikely that a single company can build and maintain the cyber world.
Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that the market opportunity for the metaverse may reach $800 billion by 2024.
And Bank of America includes the metaverse among the 14 technologies that will revolutionize our lives.
“The metaverse will comprise countless virtual worlds connected to each other and to the physical world,” experts write in the recent “Bank of America Thematic Report: The 14 Technologies That Will Revolutionize Our Lives.”
“They will create a robust economy that spans work to play, while transforming time-honored industries and markets such as finance and banking, retail and education, health and fitness, as well as adult entertainment.”
“By the end of the decade — in 2030 — we’ll be spending more time in the metaverse than in ‘real life,'” said American inventor Raymond Kurzweil, a pioneer in developing various technological breakthroughs, and Google’s director of engineering since 2012.
- What is the metaverse, the new digital universe that will transform our online experiences
However, the concept is actually not new.
Different online video games have been developing virtual worlds for decades.
They are not the metaverse, but they have some ideas in common with it.
Big investments
“Metaverses are not new. What is new is the amount of investment that is going into and the growing acceptance of digital assets among a population that is increasingly digital native,” explains Benjamin Dean, Director of Digital Assets at WisdomTree. , an investment and research firm.
“The pace of transformation continues to accelerate, which means that technologies (which we considered to be distant and long-term) are getting closer and closer,” he says.
“In recent years, in industrialized countries, the majority of people (more than 50%) do not remember what life was like before the internet. This demographic change will continue to happen, especially in countries where smartphones are ubiquitous and the population is younger,” says the WisdomTree expert.
“I called this process the virtualization of the world a decade ago,” adds Dean.
According to the explanation of Mark Zuckerberg himself, the founder of Facebook, in the digital universe that will be the metaverse “you can instantly teleport like a hologram to be in the office without having to move, or to a concert with friends or to your parents’ living room to bring you up to date.”
But unlike today’s virtual reality, which is used primarily for video games, the metaverse is expected to encompass entertainment, gaming, concerts, movies, work, education, and so on.
And that will involve the development of new companies and technologies in those specific sectors.
Concerts, content and entertainment
The singers Ariana Grande, Marshmello or the rapper Travis Scott have performed within the famous video game Fortnite, from Epic Games, in a demonstration of what the future of concerts in the metaverse could be like.
Up to 12.3 million players on the platform gathered in real time in April of last year to witness the launch of the song The Scotts that the rap superstar composed together with fellow rapper Kid Cudi.
And Mickey Mouse himself seems ready to interact in the metaverse.
Walt Disney CEO Bob Chapek said the entertainment conglomerate is preparing to make the technological leap into a virtual reality world at its theme parks.
Although the experience would not be limited to them.
“Extending the magic of the Disney parks to homes is a real possibility,” he said.
“Generation Z will drive the shift to the metaverse and the use of holograms, as well as more content creation for virtual worlds. This could benefit the industry in the very long term,” says the Bank of America report.
Content providers ranging from movies (Disney) to television (Discovery Channel), sports (Fox Sports), music (Universal Music Group, Live Nation), platform providers (Netflix) and newspapers (The New York Times) have begun to test with immersive experiences in 3D.
The director of the “Lord of the Rings” saga, Peter Jackson, recently announced the sale of his special effects studio, Weta Digital, to an American software company that wants to develop the metaverse.
An operation that shows that things are moving very fast in the sector.
“Offering immersive ‘front row’ seating at a sporting event, concert or fashion show could be lucrative for businesses, while increasing accessibility to live events,” says Bank of America in its report.
Office and virtual presence
But if the covid-19 pandemic has stopped anything, it is remote work.
Infinite Office is the workplace imagined by Facebook.
It has virtual meeting rooms where participants can simultaneously use their real-world computers.
But Facebook is not the only big technology that is developing a concept of this type.
Microsoft recently talked about creating “a metaverse for business” based on Microsoft Teams, the meeting platform that became popular during the pandemic.
With this, it wants to offer virtual spaces for events, meetings and networking opportunities, the company announced.
For the consulting firm PwC, the training sector has much to gain from a virtual office environment.
“Virtual reality is already invigorating training programs in various sectors by opening up environments that would be expensive, dangerous or limited in the real world,” its experts say in a 2020 report.
They believe that an immersive and emotional experience, which can be much more exciting than traditional on-the-job training, can boost memory and be highly effective in teaching new skills and procedures.
Big challenges
Experts agree that there is a long way to go before we can see the materialized metaverse.
Former IBM engineer Thomas Frey recalls that the internet infrastructure, the feasibility of having a large number of participants interacting with each other in real time, language barriers, and latency issues (the time it takes to open a web page when we do click on it) are the main challenges of the metaverse.
More powerful computers and graphics and video processing chips will be needed, in which the most relevant companies in the sector such as NVDA, AMD or Intel are already working.
The development of all this technology means new business opportunities for all the companies that manufacture microchips.
Another sector that promises transformation is education.
“The fundamental idea is based on adaptive learning, which has been around for many years,” write Haim Israel, Felix Tran and Martyn Briggs, strategists at BoA Merrill Lynch.
“Lessons change in response to students’ reactions to the material, such as nodding their heads or even falling asleep. Additional quizzes, videos, and explanations can be added to increase understanding or to liven up the lesson,” they add.
In the field of higher education, everything indicates that universities will create their own virtual campuses, which could increase the number of students.
The possibilities are endless.
Astronomy students could stand in the midst of colliding galaxies, and art history class could take place in the Sistine Chapel.
Medicine and telecare could have a field to grow and develop new services.
Increasingly, users are turning to digital solutions for healthcare, and the pandemic has exacerbated this trend.
The same thing happened with electronic commerce.
Giants like Amazon or Libre Mercado saw their sales multiply and Bank of America believes that the metaverse will lead consumers to buy more in virtual worlds.
For Benjamin Dean, all this new trade will require alternative currencies that will coexist with existing money: the dollar, the euro, the yen, the peso…
“The lines between physical and virtual realities have blurred and will continue to do so for the next decade,” he says.