Shanghai publishes five-year plans for metawares development

BEIJING – China’s largest city is taking metawares seriously, a technology that has caught the attention of the masses this year, with the potential to design the next generation of the Internet.

Chinese government departments and local officials released five-year development plans this year to show how to implement the federal government’s five-year plan released in March.

One, published by Shanghai on Thursday, contained the first reference to metawares, according to Chinese media. Technology expands human relationships into the virtual world of three-dimensional incarnations.

Metawares is one of four frontiers to be explored, the Shanghai Municipal Economic and Information Technology Commission said in its five-year plan for the development of the electronics sector.

According to the CNBC translation from the Chinese text, the document calls for “promoting the use of metawares in areas such as applications, business offices, social entertainment, industrial production, product security, and electronic games.”

The commission said it plans to increase research and development of basic technologies, including sensors, real-time communication and blockchain.

This document does not provide a specific timeline or goals for metaverse research and development.

Beijing’s latest five – year plan, released in March, names seven technologies that China seeks to be self-sufficient in science and technology as “borders.”

Metawares has become a key word, especially as the American social media company Facebook changed its name to meta in October. Earlier this month, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he expects most virtual encounters to move to metawares over the next two or three years.

This week, Beijing – based Baidu hosted what is being called China’s first metawares conference. The event was supposed to mark the opening of Baidu’s metaverse app for developers, and an administrator told reporters that it would take six years for the full release of the processor.

Aside from the common metawares buzz on Chinese social media, the state media has published several articles on the subject, often with the risk of fraud.

At CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia, Winston Maw, an assistant professor of law at New York University, expects new rules on metaware development to follow, following stricter restrictions and regulations on a variety of technologies, including cryptocurrencies. .

He pointed out how aspects of the global development of Metawares are related to cryptocurrency products such as gaming and non-fungal tokens, all of which are highly researched in China. Ma did not speak in the specific context of the Shanghai Commission’s development plans.

– CNBC Eustance Huang Contributed to this report.