In the next three years, the Chinese government of Shanghai intends to implement a program to support projects in virtual reality.
The municipal authorities of one of the largest metropolitan areas in China announced their intention to make the city a major technology center for the development of such projects. Government investment in the metaverse economy will be increased 30 times, from $1.5 billion to $52 billion.
Wu Jincheng, director of the Shanghai Committee for Economics and Information Technology, said government funding will be used to support companies that “specialize in product and service benchmarking.”
The municipality offers commercial structures to focus on solving a number of technological problems, in particular, the introduction of a digital component, such activities as the creation of virtual enterprises, virtual tourism and related entertainment, a digital arena where users could communicate using social networks, virtual reality, online -games and operations with cryptoassets.
Previously, the Chinese authorities planned to limit themselves to creating a 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) metaverse industry fund to support the development of industrial business applications, robotic networks and smart VR terminals. However, after analyzing the results of a survey of Chinese Internet users conducted by Statista, where more than 60% clearly confirmed their intention to communicate in the metaverse, promising destinations were supplemented by virtual tourism and entertainment.