China’s iPhone production hub of Henan bets its future on the metaverse

Name: Meta opens a physical retail store where customers take a first look at virtual reality
Uploaded: 2022-09-28T08:00:12.000Z
Duration: 1 min 51 s
Description: Meta opens a physical retail store where customers take a first look at virtual reality

The Henan provincial government wants to built a hundred billion yuan metaverse industry by 2025, according to a draft plan

Henan joins a flurry of local governments in China that have announced initiatives to boost the development of the metaverse

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A visitor tries an augmented reality glasses at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai in September 2022. Photo: Bloomberg

Xinmei Shen

Published: 4:00pm, 28 Sep 2022

China’s central Henan province, which has positioned itself as a key node in the global supply chain in the past decade by housing the world’s largest iPhone manufacturing compound, has zeroed in on the metaverse as its next central industry.

According to a recently released draft plan, the provincial government aims to develop a hundred billion yuan metaverse industry by 2025, in the latest rush by local Chinese authorities to tie up their developmental blueprint with the loosely defined concept.

The term “metaverse” is commonly used to describe an immersive virtual world where digital representations of people can interact with each other. Some people expect that to be the next iteration of the internet, although commercial applications are scant at the moment.

Henan wants to cultivate an “innovative zone” for the metaverse with “significant influence”, and spur the development of relevant industries, officials said in the document published on Tuesday.

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Meta opens a physical retail store where customers take a first look at virtual reality

The plan, titled “Henan’s metaverse industry development action plan for the years 2022 to 2025”, detailed the province’s main tasks in the coming years, which include tackling key technologies such as extended reality, digital assets and brain-computer interface.