Nanjing, the capital city of China’s eastern Jiangsu Province, has recently launched the China Metaverse Technology and Application Innovation Platform. Managed by the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), the platform is designed to bring together the resources of academic institutions and enterprises in China and strengthen research efforts related to the metaverse.
The unveiling of the platform comes as Chinese cities are competing to become metaverse development hubs. Nanjing, for instance, in February announced its metaverse strategy, aiming to create an industry with annual revenue of more than $19.13 billion by 2025.
The platform’s purpose is to consolidate the resources of academic institutions and companies throughout mainland China to promote research activities related to the metaverse. Shanghai is also actively pursuing its metaverse ambitions, aiming to create an annual revenue of 350 billion Yuan. To that purpose, the city has recently presented a collection of 20 metaverse use cases, including digital recreations of historic architectural landmarks and virtual healthcare diagnoses.
Although China has strict regulations on cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the country still recognizes the transformative power of Web3 technologies, including the metaverse. The China Metaverse Technology and Application Innovation Platform is an example of this.
