Source: Cailian Press

Reporter Xu Cihao

Image Source: Generated by Wujie AI

"The power of digital intelligence, empowering the new Asian Games." The official metaverse release ceremony of the Asian Games was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province yesterday. The Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee, in conjunction with China Mobile, officially launched the "Asian Games Metaverse" platform.

It is understood that the Asian Games Metaverse platform integrates AI intelligence, digital twins, VR, and other technologies to create three major creative spaces: Asian Games venues, urban cultural tourism, and personal Asian Games collections. It has created six innovative experiences including Asian Games knowledge popularization and Q&A, virtual sports, metaverse viewing, intelligent interaction, and AIGC personal collections, allowing users to watch, participate in sports, and tour the city in the form of virtual characters, providing Asian Games spectators with an "immersive, exciting, and interactive" metaverse experience.

In fact, this is not the first time that the metaverse has been used in the Hangzhou Asian Games. As early as last year, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee launched the Asian Games digital torchbearer to the world, a global first. During this year's Lantern Festival, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee also held the "Zhe Fireworks" Hangzhou Asian Games Metaverse Fireworks Display.

Digital People "Break Through" into the Asian Games

On November 27th last year, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee launched the "Asian Games Digital Torchbearer" to the world. Husain Al-Musallam, Director General of the Olympic Council of Asia, delivered a video speech, inviting the world to become Asian Games digital torchbearers.

The newly released "Zhejiang Province Metaverse Industry Development Action Plan (2023-2025)" (referred to as the "Action Plan") also guides the planning of metaverse industry in fields such as office, gaming, and healthcare. In terms of promoting industrial development, the metaverse virtual human demonstration project is included.

The Hangzhou Asian Games has showcased an example of the use of virtual digital humans.

The Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee fully leverages the advantages of the Asian Games digital torchbearer, which is simple and innovative, rooted in the metaverse, to provide diverse and immersive "metaverse" services, such as digital city exploration, digital national fitness, virtual viewing activities, etc. At the same time, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee will continue to launch novel online torch relay activities in conjunction with major events of the Asian Games torch relay, and participants will receive exclusive blockchain certificates and have the opportunity to obtain tickets to the opening ceremony.

According to public information, digital human applications may also appear in the opening and closing ceremonies of the Hangzhou Asian Games. The creative team hopes to deeply integrate high-tech such as blockchain, big data, and artificial intelligence with the imagery of Chinese traditional culture in the opening and closing ceremonies, showcasing the charm of digital China and digital Zhejiang.

"The underlying core of the metaverse is blockchain. Without anchoring the virtual world and the real world, the virtual world is just a game and cannot become a metaverse," said Zhu Jiwei, Executive Vice President of the Zhejiang Blockchain Technology Application Association, to a reporter from Metaverse NEWS. He added that Zhejiang's digital economy and blockchain are leading nationwide, so in the era of the metaverse, Zhejiang is seamlessly upgrading.

New Track "Card Position Battle" in Hangzhou

In fact, for the metaverse industry, which is still in its early stages, industrial development requires a large amount of capital investment and supporting industrial policy support. Overall, Hangzhou has relatively obvious comparative advantages in promoting the development of the metaverse industry.

This advantage is concentrated in the fact that Hangzhou not only has a solid foundation in core technology for the metaverse industry, but also "mobilizes the entire city" to promote richer application scenarios, providing a key market traction effect for the development of the metaverse industry, and truly attracting many upstream and downstream enterprises to develop in Hangzhou.

For example, in terms of industrial policies, Hangzhou has issued a number of industrial policies related to the metaverse, including provincial-level planning guidance and special industry support policies at the district and county (city) levels. For example, at the end of last year, the Development and Reform Commission of Zhejiang Province and five other departments jointly issued the "Zhejiang Province Metaverse Industry Development Action Plan (2023-2025)", the third provincial-level metaverse special policy after Shanghai and Henan.

At the district and county (city) levels, for example, the "Hangzhou Yuhang Future Science and Technology City XR Industry Development Plan" proposes to increase the introduction of XR industry talents, providing up to 100 million yuan in support for talents. In addition, Yuhang District will provide full-chain financing services for resident enterprises through a 1 billion yuan industry fund and a risk pool of up to 5 million yuan per project.

In terms of industrial resources, in addition to leading companies in Zhejiang such as Alibaba, Hikvision, and Dahua Technology, a large number of technology companies are also rapidly entering the field. For example, in the hardware field, companies such as KATVR, Lingban Technology, and Light Grain Technology, and in the software content field, companies such as EZXR, Lingdi Technology, Xiangxin Technology, and Chicheng Technology.

According to the Hurun Research Institute's "2022 Hurun China Metaverse Potential Enterprises List", which lists the top 200 Chinese enterprises with the most development potential in the metaverse field, Hangzhou ranks fourth after Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, with 15 companies on the list.

"In the future, Zhejiang is likely to be in the first echelon in this new track," said Liu Kai, Partner of Hangzhou Dongyuan Equity Investment, to a reporter from Metaverse NEWS. He believes that the development of the metaverse requires a large amount of resources such as capital, talent, and technology support. Zhejiang, as a province with highly developed digital economy and internet, has unique advantages. "Even without discussing the concept of the metaverse, the fields involved in the metaverse, such as blockchain and XR technology, are also areas that Zhejiang highly values and develops."

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