Imagine talking to Confucius across space and time, enjoying the country's most beautiful mountain vistas from the comfort of your own home, and watching Lionel Messi juggle the football just for you...

Today's "New Quality Productive Forces in Beijing" takes us to the Metaverse Application Innovation Center in the Beijing Municipal Administrative Center and Zhongguancun Internet 3.0 Industrial Park to experience the future of the internet.

Imagining the Future · Metaverse

Roblox defines the eight key features of the metaverse as Identity, Friends, Immersive, Low Friction, Variety, Anywhere, Economy, and Civility. However, what exactly is the metaverse, and what can it do for us? Let's explore the Metaverse Application Innovation Center in the Beijing Municipal Administrative Center.

Tongzhou, described so beautifully by poet Wang Weizhen in his "Ancient Pagoda in the Clouds", continues to mesmerize, now with a futuristic giant cube and "one district, one river, and three towns", special characters switching between light and shadow as they guide us through the history of civilization.

She literally seemed to bring storms into the studio when reporting on the weather. Do you remember the popular internet weather presenter able to control the weather? This marvelous, fast developing contemporary immersive digital technology was developed by Beijing Dahooo Technology.

"Our intelligent XR immersive simulation integrates XR technology, virtual lighting control, and digital human interaction to satisfy a multitude of different applications and give our users an experience as close to real life as possible. In terms of innovation, the system is high-precision, tracking movement with multiple cameras at high speeds, and it supports synchronous switching among machines, ultrawide virtual screens, and TV walls. LED splicing screens and PBR naturally integrate images to simulate the environment regardless of real display space coordinates for a more natural scene and taking its application beyond TV studios, cultural tourism, and teaching," Dahooo Technology Government Affairs Department Director Cong Fuxin said.

Have you ever seen a robot with eyes? Simou is humanoid visual perception technology developed by Humanplus Intelligent Robotics Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd.

"Most of the solutions on the market are based on 2D vision. The robot vacuum cleaner, for example, utilizes 2D LIDAR. Humanoid visual perception technology provides a more 3D visual effect. In addition to logistics and health care, it can also play a role in the construction of virtual spaces in the metaverse. The 3D reconstruction of sensors is essential to real-time digital input, transmitted to the metaverse to complete metaverse construction," Humanplus CEO Li Jiajun said.

The VR+ immersive exhibition hall is a comprehensive, interactive cloud exhibition with 3D panoramic roaming that remodels tens of thousands of square meters of museums in a few days and a "digital magic wall" with multi-person interactive touch capabilities that can be used to grasp digital exhibits at will. Located in the Metaverse Application Innovation Center in the Beijing Municipal Administrative Center, Beijing Heiyou Digital Display Co., Ltd. creates a comprehensive metaverse game, shopping, social, and educational experience arming users with real superpowers.

According to Heiyou Digital, the company has developed more than 100 interactive digital products spanning 11 categories, building a digital economy ecosystem where users can communicate, cooperate, and share experiences with others in real-time and buy and trade virtual goods and services.

This is the metaverse as Beijing and the Metaverse Application Innovation Center in the Beijing Municipal Administrative Center see it. Beijing Municipal Administrative Center has been active in its promotion of the development of the digital economy, industrial aggregation, and emerging digital industrial clusters as it builds a globally competitive digital industry cluster and a new benchmark for the development of the digital economy.

Imagining the Future·Web3.0

If Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 were all about reading and writing, then Web 3.0 is all about reading, writing, and owning the internet.

The Zhongguancun Internet 3.0 Industrial Park exhibition hall in Chaoyang District showcases industries booming in Beijing's Web 3.0, popping up like mushrooms in the capital's rain of scientific and technological innovation.

Wouldn't it be convenient to restore venues virtually before a big event and predict foot traffic and peak hours ahead of time? Beijing UINO Technology used an AI model and digital twins to conduct user modeling and simulations before, during, and after the opening and closing ceremonies and competitions at the Hangzou Asian Games, greatly improving the efficiency of on-site support.

Beijing UINO Technology Partner Zhong Zhixiang said: "To guarantee the closing ceremony came off without a hitch, we took data from the opening ceremony for modeling and were able to predict that nearly half of the spectators would take the special subway, identifying peak hours, crowded stations, and risk areas for changes in the foot traffic, business, and network quality around the venues. Quick, accurate data means better security."

Would you like to chat with the perfect partner? At the booth of Wl-times, you can interact with the Wl AI interactive digital human, a hit with visitors and perfect for a variety of business needs, from image generation, expression and behavior, and language and sound to knowledge base association. During the interactions, the digital human employs Blend Shape facial technology to make facial expressions more vivid and natural and identify user emotions to reply in a way appropriate to the situation.

How would you like to watch Messi work from up close? Gongti Metaverse's digital technology can provide you with just such an immersive experience. Gongti Metaverse Market Development Department Director Qiao Yan spoke of an 86-year-old soccer fan who recently visited their digital space to watch Messi's first metaverse performance up close and personal with a VR headset, afterwards trying his hand at digital goalkeeper for a round of penalties against the virtual attacker. Needless to say, he enjoyed himself immensely. Digital technology would also appear to have transcended the limitations of age.

Co-creation · Digital Future

In spite of obvious progress, Web 3.0 and the metaverse still have a long way to go as the internet is constantly updated.

According to chanyeos.com, as of January 2024, there were more than 30,000 metaverse (Web 3.0) enterprises in Beijing. So far this year, Beijing has announced its intention to remain at the head of the metaverse pack with a series of science and technology feasts at the ZGC Forum, the Global Digital Economy Conference, and China International Fair for Trade in Services, bringing the metaverse from imagination to reality.

Going forward, Beijing will strengthen the connection between the city and the district as it continues to make breakthroughs in key core technologies, promote the construction of common technology platforms, build application scenarios, and optimize innovation ecology to further scale up the Web 3.0 industry. The future is here, take a look at this wonderful new world of internet.

(Source: Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park)