Ever wondered what famous science fiction movies such as Minority Report, The Matrix Revolution, Free Guy, have in common? They portray a parallel universe almost “interactive and living” like in the real world, with people of different avatars and characters, corporations, and places. They in some form represent what is now famous as Metaverse, although the term itself was coined in 1992 in the novel ‘Snow Crash’. Science fiction movies and novels tend to set the tone for “art of the possible”, only to be later realized by technology interventions and innovations.

 So, what is metaverse? Depends on who you ask and which industry we are looking at. Traditionally defined as a shared virtual 3D world that is interactive and immersive, where each domain has a different approach and realization in this parallel universe. This is the beginning of the ambient computing era, where we are no longer just computing users but are engrossed in the computer world and form an active node of the “Always On, Always Connected” network through our smart devices. Metaverse is an existing concept turned reality, with advancement in silicon (GPU), connectivity (5G and beyond), cloud, NLP engines, AR/VR sets and consoles, and the convergence of real and virtual worlds’ business scenarios. The acceleration in processing analog inputs (voice, haptics, and vision) has brought Mixed Reality into limelight, and is bringing emotions and empathy into the world of compute through AI. 

Metaverse’s impact on industries 

Gaming: Metaverse is a true-blue multiplayer and real-time gaming environment, providing a highly interactive AR/VR and voice-based 3D gaming experience, where numerous concurrent tournaments can be live-streamed to all metaverse citizens. In fact, as seen by some mega acquisitions such as Activision by Microsoft, metaverse’s core infrastructure comprises of advanced gears. They are an enhanced cloud-based gaming platform, a powerful edge device (gaming console or headset), efficient compute & rendering engine, digital currencies, social networks & associations, virtual identities/avatars, amongst others that can be extended to other industries. 

Advertising & Marketing: Metaverse is the perfect universe to find all their target demography and deliver hyper-targeted content. Several luxury brands are already engaging with customers through metaverse to provide a holistic and real-time shopping escapade. The retail & eCommerce sector which is majorly 2D in today’s time will be transformed into an extremely interactive 3D experience with a digital aisle to make shopping more personalized for customers. The concept of “Infinite Aisle” as promoted by retailers is now becoming a reality.  

Media & Entertainment: Concepts such as groups’ streaming on OTT platforms are enhancing the content consumption experience in metaverse. With smart interactive content concepts such as dynamic scripts becoming a reality, the stories are guided by decisions prompted by customers while watching. 

Education: This domain will witness high-end simulated experiments and concepts to revolutionize the education system. The spatial, immersive experience provides immense realism and credibility similar to the current times and is expected to enhance literacy by over 100 times across the planet. The cost of delivering high-end experimental education will eventually reduce significantly, thereby making experiential education more accessible.  

Telco: This domain is all set to monetize metaverse in a big way. According to Credit Suisse’s report, the data usage alone is expected to grow 20 times by 2032 as the adoption of metaverse becomes mainstream. In addition to data, telcos also have a major role to play in providing a secure and transparent digital commerce / crypto ecosystem which will only add more ARPU across its value chain. Telcos have a real opportunity to enrich the end-to-end customer experience. 

Metaverse is expected to redefine the future of work. The emergence of hybrid work models is only going to get more real-time and productive due to higher levels of emotional engagement promoted by metaverse. In the communication & collaboration domain, one can define it as 3D collaborative platform elevating virtual engagement to a whole new level from what we know as bridge-enabled calls. Corporations are already experimenting with virtual conference rooms with participants attending and exiting based on their schedule and a highly interactive whiteboard driving animated conversations amongst them. 

Opportunity for the tech ecosystem 

The technology ecosystem – from chip to connectivity to cloud, is at the center of accelerating the transformation for end customers and industries. If we look at consumer devices, numerous consumer electronic companies are looking to innovate engagement gadgets with incredible AR/VR capabilities and a full body haptics to provide instantaneous feedback. Cloud players are looking at metaverse to massively accelerate their business from compute to storage to data ecosystems to edge. Silicon vendors are gearing up for advanced compute capabilities through GPU to solve challenges from complex 3D rendering to massive edge-based data. Technologies like Web 3.0 (decentralized web), blockchain, etc. are extremely critical to build this whole ecosystem based on trust and security.  

This universe has infinite possibilities but leveraging and monetizing is extremely domain and industry specific. A large bank requires to create a transformative experience while integrating their existing technology ecosystem to drive fulfillment. In digital education, it is all about facilitating high-end education through innovative content. The open-source community is responding to this phenomenon with several interesting platforms which will enable enterprises to setup their own private universes.  

Metaverse is promising to be the perfect storm scenario where all forces are converging to not only define what it means but also heavily invest in it. But as they say, time will tell where this new tide takes us. Technology enablers across cloud, silicon & GPU, connectivity & bandwidth, and consumer gadgets, real-time data streaming and analytics capabilities are currently available to make this a successful reality. While landing on Mars may still be a few years away, but metaverse can definitely offer living experience not only on Mars but across the Milky Way. 

The author is Senior Vice President – Engineering, GlobalLogic