Seoul, Dubai, Santa Monica Named Amongst Leaders in Metaverse in WEF Report

The metaverse sector, though progressively, is exhibiting indicators of progress and adoption in several components of the world. Citing a report by know-how intelligence agency ABI Research, the World Economic Forum (WEF) mentioned that just about 700 cities can have some sort of a metaverse infrastructure by the yr 2030. As of now, nevertheless, South Korea’s Seoul, UAE’ Dubai, and US’ Santa Monica have been named within the report because the main cities of the worldwide metaverse sector.

Listing the advantages of cities exploring the metaverse, WEF mentioned this digital world ecosystem brings alongside price financial savings associated to the design, operation, and upkeep of city infrastructure whereas additionally serving to metropolis leaders acquire ‘political capital’ if town’s inhabitants turns into tech pleasant.

“As cities look to decarbonise, digital twin technologies can help by enhancing urban design through simulation, planification and optimisation,” the report highlighted.

In the US, Santa Monica is the primary metropolis to lets customers go in regards to the metropolis by a metaverse-enabled social media app known as Flick.

“FlickPlay encourages people to walk through real places to find scarce digital tokens, which can be collected and then used to unlock videos with rare filters that you can show off to your friends. By moving people through parts of cities that are less travelled, FlickPlay can also create new economic activity while reducing crime,” it defined.

Dubai is viewing metaverse as an important half its financial progress marketing campaign that’s anticipated to face amongst world’s prime cities when it comes to GDP. To strengthen its place within the sector, Dubai is trying to appeal to 1,000 companies working within the blockchain and metaverse sectors. In the following seven years, Dubai goals to be residence to over 40,000 Web3 professionals. As per WEF’s analysis, greater than 50 p.c customers in Dubai sit up for creating and monetising content material within the metaverse, the report mentioned. While 60 p.c customers see the metaverse as a enterprise alternative, 78 p.c manufacturers want to be extra engaged with Web3.

“Dubai will develop Web3 technology and its applications to enhance new ways of working in tourism, education, retail, healthcare and remote work. How will the city achieve this? By fostering innovation, increasing research and development, while boosting talent and investment by helping developers, content creators and digital platform users to get support in education on all things metaverse,” the report famous.

As for Seoul, the expansion of the metaverse in South Korea is totally being backed by the federal government there. The Asian nation has already dedicated $180 million (roughly Rs 1,500 crore) to the event of a nationwide metaverse ecosystem. The section one in all Metaverse Seoul lets residents obtain the world’s first city metaverse app and use it to play video games, expertise metropolis sights, and full mundane duties.

“Metaverse Seoul phase two will bring in more services from 2024 that include connecting local industries with foreign investors, while the final phase will integrate virtual and augmented reality technology into the day-to-day running of the city’s infrastructure,” the WEF report claimed.

Mark Zuckerberg went bullish on the metaverse tech when he rebranded Facebook to Meta in September 2021. Despite incurring back-to-back losses in its metaverse-dedicated unit, Zuckerberg has stored his religion intact on this department of rising know-how.

As per Statista, it was estimated that the worldwide metaverse market stood at $65.5 billion (roughly Rs. 5,44,035 crore) in 2022. This yr, the market is predicted to rise to $82 billion (roughly Rs. 6,81,082 crore), earlier than surging to $936.6 billion (roughly Rs. 77,79,526 crore) by 2030.